iApuckettlypse
by WhiteKnightro
Summary: iApuckettlypse. Set in an iOMG future the story follows Freddie and Sam after Sam dumps Freddie for an older man. Can Seddie be rebuilt? Summary is probably better than story. Rated T but has some mature themes.
1. Freddie AS After Sam

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_**iCarly**_**. And even the guy that does doesn't control it. Some things have a life of their own.**

**A/N Update note: This is mainly just to fix typos, errors and sloppy writing. If you've read this before it won't change your opinion. If you haven't read it before, take a shot. Note from first upload: I had such a good time with my other fanfic, iWTF (and my thanks for all the kind reviews and comments from so many of you), that I wanted to revisit the Freddie character a few years down the road. I've tried extrapolating one possible future for the characters Schneider's Bakery and the actors have created that is sort of its own animal. The themes here are more adult than the show is allowed to investigate but the narrative I've concocted seems plausible. I'll probably keep developing this, but thought I'd see how folks react. I write because I have to, but it's nice to know how people respond to something.**

**iApuckettlypse Chapter 1: Freddie Benson AS (After Sam)**

**Gibby's POV**

The gym Freddie goes to is kind of a chizhole, in a chiz neighborhood with abandoned cars and periodic gunfire in the distance. But it works for him. It's early in the morning so most of the bad people are in bed. Most of the smart people too, but I park and give the lot a look over before getting out of the car. There are all kinds of empty beer cans and fast food wrappers in the doorway and a gallon iced tea jug half full of something that is NOT iced tea. Nobody is watching the front desk when I walk in. Most gyms smell like chlorine and have cool air. Not here, this place is like a cinderblock version of my summer armpit. All that was missing was a zombie shuffling down the dark hallway.

On mornings when time is tight I pick Fred up. I give him lots of rides in his own car. My driving allows him to put in more screen time, preparing, and it allows me to rock a sweet ride. Fred is always thinking, planning, preparing. He's been real tense lately, working on something big. Maybe the biggest of his career so far, he says. Today is the meeting at Pear where it all comes together. He's pretty intense. The guy I used to do _iCarly_ skits with is… gone. He isn't like he was in high school. Heck, who is? You get older, you better adapt.

He brought me here two years ago. He said he needed someone who had his back. He hates this town. Says it's full of thieves and liars. He told me he could get me a job at Pear, even though I didn't know much more about technology than the time we tried to convince a cute girl named Shannon that I taught Freddie all he knew about computers. Fred and I had stayed in touch over the net, playing games and chatting. He came here, recruited straight out of college by Pear. I knew after what happened with him and Sam that he wasn't going back to Seattle.

I'll never forget when he picked me up at the airport. He had lost a lot of nerd. His body was shaped like a V. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, with veins on his neck and forearms where his skin was exposed. He keeps a really close shaved mustache and goatee and a silver earring shaped like a ham punched into his left lobe. He dresses like he stepped out of a magazine and smells like the cologne samples. Wherever we go I watch the women checking him out. Hey, some women like that hot, muscled, handsome, kind, smart, successful approach; others prefer the way I roll, so I do okay in case you were worried.

He runs here at 5 AM, five miles every weekday rain or stars usually in a weighted vest. He puts in 90 minutes on a routine that makes me sweat just watching. He explained it to me once. It's all about pushing and pulling. Watching him do sit ups or pull ups he goes really, really slow. There is also punching and kicking. A LOT of punching and kicking. Those are really, really fast. I take a bite out of my whole grain Fat Cake. We all do healthy in our own way.

I find him working out on a mat in a room that isn't real well lit but still no zombies. There are a few dumbbells and metal disks around him. He notices me and comes out of his position on the floor. I can't tell if he was stretching or what. Like I said, it was real slow until he just sort of flexes and comes to a standing position. It looks easy but I'm pretty sure it's not. He steps into the light so I see he's soaked, shiny with sweat .He drags a towel across his shoulders. "Hey Gib," he says to me, "time flies doesn't matter if you're having fun or not. I'll hit the shower and be with you." He looks at the Fat Cake in my hand.

"What is that?"

"Fat Cake."

"Why is it brown?"

"Whole grain."

"That's like stabbing yourself with a fur covered knife so the metal isn't cold going in."

"You know what you and I have in common?" I ask.

"A deep, almost spiritual appreciation of liquid soap?"

"Besides that."

Fred shook his head.

"No matter what we do, we're both gonna die someday."

"Thank you Dr. Sunshine."

"Who tells it like it is?"

We both say, "GIBAAAAAY!"

We stop for breakfast on the way to the office. He has reasonable portions of something healthy and I don't.

**Freddie's POV**

Maurice Lesard, the guy running the presentation is a creep; he's been a creep so long he doesn't even know it anymore. He reminds me of Neville, except Neville really was (is? I wonder what happened to him) smart. We call Maurice the Lizard. He has built his very successful career on the bones of programmers that only know code, but not business. Maurice rips off code from innocent, naïve nerds who've spent their lives mushrooming in mom and dad's basement. Sometime in his life he decided it was better to steal other people's ideas to save time on developing his own.

I've decided it ends today.

We're on the net with this presentation. His pitch is polished like a new dime. The suite he's pushing will live in the cloud. It has the potential to be a killer app. Despite the cloud hosting, it will run only on the Pear OS and will force everyone to go out and buy the hardware to run the software. This is the kind of thing that will get him cover time on nerd magazines. At Pear it will catapult him up the ladder and he will be a millionaire for sure if he isn't already. He's been stealing code for longer than I've been alive and that is part of the problem. Looking around the room, I'm the youngest guy here. I'm in the room because my boss, thinks I have potential. If I do this, I'm going to embarrass him.

The Lizard looks at me where I'm seated, and I know he's going to use me as an example of how the software functions. He loves to bring up _iCarly._

"My girls grew up watching _iCarly_" he tells his audience. "Now imagine our own Fred Benson here needs to relive some of his glory days. As many of you know, young Fred was the creator of _iCarly." _People in the room give a smattering of polite applause. Everybody's kids grew up on either Dingo shows or _iCarly_. The way he said "young Fred" made me think I should be sucking my thumb.

I correct him, "I was just the tech producer, the ladies on the screen made it work." I smile at him; we are just one big happy family here at Pear.

Marcus, my boss watches me, he senses something.

Maurice continued, "As I was saying, now he needs to search for a particular episode of _iCarly_," he taps the keypad and up on all four walls around us come episodes of the show minus any sound. I feel my pulse quicken, and my stomach knot, because there she is, a young version wiggling her toes in front of my camera, random dancing on another screen. On the third screen is Sam in the fifth, final season, putting the zing in amazing. She is magnetic, drawing my eyes out of my head and the breath out of my chest.

This must be what Superman feels like when the green rock shows up. _Focus Fredward,_ I think to myself, because who else am I going to think to?

Maurice demonstrates how the new app gives him total media control over the content. He can edit, even create new content from the existing digital source. With a camera he captures me in the room and inserts me into one of the episodes where Spencer is supposed to be a baby, I think it's the time he had the sophisticated date waiting downstairs. Lizard continues to use the _iCarly_ material out on the web literally creating a new, albeit not very funny bit. He shows how he can save, manipulate and collaborate, it's a great demonstration and the Lizard is a showman. The room is very impressed and applause slaps to life multiple times.

"Maurice, that is very impressive," comes the voice of the BIG Boss from his hospital bed somewhere in the world.

"Couldn't do it without you, chief," Maurice says and he practically puckers his lips doing it.

"Wow, this is incredible Maurice." I say, then I add, "The code for this, who wrote it?"

Maurice pauses, "Well, the development team. MY development team." And he puts on a sort-of aw-shucks-its-nothing, face.

I pause, watching Sam, so beautiful on the screen behind him. I have to concentrate on my mission, my heart is slamming into my ribs, is it her or what I'm about to do? "Last chance, Maurice, who wrote the code?" I have a deliberate edge in my voice. I'm looking him right in the face, calling him out. The room is stirring. Behind Maurice, Sam and Carly's silent, chattering faces are huge, funny, and gorgeous. I don't dare look too long at her, her face, her shape are like a narcotic, diluting my concentration, throwing my attention into a blender.

"Benson… Fred, what is this about?" he asks with a smile. He is stone cold in control, he is a boardroom veteran and very slick. Am I out of my mind? I'm just a kid, how long ago did I get my degree? I can't do this. _You nub, Fredelupe. _I look at her on the screen, and she says to me, _Only a dishrag like you would set a trap and then turn to soap suds on go live._ _Remember, "You never know what could happen…" _I nod and say to myself,_ In 5,4,3, 2, 1…_

"It's a simple question, Lizard-o," my mouth is dry as I put a knife to the throat of my future at the company. Sam seems to be smiling at my name calling, her lips impossibly large on the screen, haunting me like my three-in-the-morning dreams.

"Gentlemen, let's be professional here," Marcus, my boss says with a cautionary tone.

"What are you saying, Benson?" Maurice asks me. He's trying to be menacing, he thinks he owns me. "I don't mean to be rude, but you are a beginner, here as a courtesy to your superior, you should be quiet while trying to absorb the experience in the room."

I pull my high card, "Press, Pear, control, shift, F7." And I see something in his eyes. I hit something, like I sank his battleship.

"Look, Fred, let's finish this on our own time," he taps my shoulder like my wise old grandfather, he is good at this stuff, he's trying to exit, to spin this back by being a swell guy.

I cut off his maneuver, "Press that key combination and you'll see the names of all the people who wrote the original code, including **my** name, and last time I looked I wasn't on your development team, in fact no on the list is." I stare straight at him and let my smirk, the one Sam said drove her crazy, speak for me. I stay silent, aware that my heart feels like it's being dribbled down a basketball court. The tension in the room is thick enough to grab a handful and take some home for later.

He pulls his lower lip in with his upper teeth. "Let's get back to the presentation, shall we?" And, in direct response, like the voice of God, the Big Boss asks, "Who owns this code, Maurice?" With those words I watched Maurice's plan to profit share, bonus and bail during the law suit turn to ashes. He knew it too. For the next few minutes he fumbles, tries to recover his momentum, but it was all gone. Everyone in the room could smell the smoke. The Lizard lasered a death stare at me, but I preferred the ocean blue eyes on the screen. I hadn't floated in that sea in so long. It was a better place to be.

The room clears out in a text book version of awkward. Marcus, my boss, passes by saying to me, "In my office, please." One guy who the Lizard has skunked before nods at me and gives me a thumbs up. Yep, Fred Benson, Force for Good. This was a big win for Truth, Justice and the American way. I had done the right thing the way my mom told me to. Looking at Sam frozen on the screen I had to do the right thing one more time: "Thanks Princess Puckett," I said. You still push my buttons,"

I needed to go to the bar.

While Gibby drove me home I checked my messages. Marcus, my boss wanted a call back, and so did my mom. There was one from a guy named Catania who wanted talk about _iCarly_. The one that made me pause was Carly. We still talked, but bless her she asked tough questions, on tough subjects that I couldn't answer. Still, I could put her off for a while. Wow. There was a time if Carly called I'd run a four-minute mile in the rain to get to her. That was my first experience in how people fall out of love.

I was changing, getting out of the suit, putting on jeans and a t-shirt. In the mirror I saw this guy who looked healthy and strong, but I didn't recognize him. There were bruises over his torso and hips going yellow from his last sparring match. My mother would have an aneurism if she saw those. "Who are you?" I asked. I watched his lips move, but he did not answer me. He just stared back with brown, empty eyes, pieces of some hollow candy.

**Gibby's POV:**

"It was a bluff?" I said to Fred as I turned off the highway.

He was checking voicemail on his Pear phone. "Kind of, I planted the code in places where he was sure to be tempted, I had an Easter egg program buried in the sub routines, but I don't know if I could get it to engage. Glad it didn't come to that."

"Can they fire you for that?" I asked.

"They can fire me for anything. I'm not going to spend my life writing programs anyway, I've got to be more than this," he said, shaking the Pear phone. "Besides, wherever I go next, you're coming with me."

"I'm not going where you go next," I told him.

He looked over at me with concern.

"It's Friday and you're headed to the bar," I said. "No way am I going there."

Fred relaxed, "suit yourself; there are some crazy ladies there."

"I've done crazy; remember Patrice and the werewolf thing?"

Fred let out a laugh and for a minute he was Freddie again. I've missed that guy. It didn't last long. I could feel the giant brain pulse again, "You know, I could modify the dashboard to mount the Pear phone to allow me to make this into a mobile office," he said.

"Uh, you realize I use that side of the car when I'm with the ladies," I reminded him.

"So, I'd be messing with your werewolf hair mojo, so to speak?"

"Kinda."

He smiled, and like a light coming on, I thought, _when was the last time I saw him smile?_

The bar was a road house a little off the highway called Cato's Cage. The windows were filled with neon logos of various beers. The gravel parking lot had a few pick-up trucks and motorcycles but in an hour or so it would be full. "I'll be here to pick you up at closing. Call me from the hospital if you need to," I said.

"Thanks mom," Fred replied and I watched him walk into another chizhole. I shook my head. Whatever demons he's fighting… and I remembered that one was blond.

**Freddie's POV**

Kenny and I stood on the door. We took turns running the metal detector. Most people had stopped bringing hardware in, but we still catch a few items. Cato's is not where the elite go for after dinner drinks and dancing.

Kenny is older than me. He's been doing this a long time. He has massive forearms, like Popeye the sailor, but instead of anchor tattoos he has drawings of dogs. I asked him once why he didn't have tigers or dragons and he said, "I like dogs." Pure Kenny, not deep and very honest.

The band hadn't started yet, or conversation would be impossible. The crowd was the usual mess of working class tattoos, ankle bracelets from the county and bad hair.

"So Benson, you see the Three Stooges back by the stage?" Kenny asks me.

"Yep, Big, Stupid and Dangerous."

He nodded. "Here's my prediction, if they mess with the band, I'm gonna head back and make it right. They mess with some chick, you'll head back there."

"Huh?"

"You really haven't figured it out yet have you?"

I gave him my famous no-clue raised eyebrow.

"Every time we throw someone out of here, anytime they mess with a woman, you are there. You can't stand to see someone give women a hard time."

"And you can?"

"I been married."

I chuckled. I didn't want to get into any conversations about how I relate to women. "You want a refill?" I pointed at his coffee cup.

He shakes his head and I get Manda's attention. Manda is a waitress and typical of the people who come to Cato's Cage: Divorced, overweight, no high school diploma, with a couple of kids who are going down the same road. I'm not sure how people end up here. But I'm starting to figure it out.

"Hey Frederick," she says, "I got something you need?" She gives me a big wink and I smile back. Years ago and before some rough miles and accumulated bad decisions, she was probably really pretty; I can see it under the make-up and lines that hard times put on faces. "I just need some water. If you can get some lemon in it, I'll walk you to your car at close." I put a dollar on her tray.

She snorts, "You'd walk me to my car if both your legs were broke. Your mama raised you right."

I wondered if there was a blinking sign on my chest that said, _Knight-errant._

"By the way, my name is Fredward, not Frederick."

"No chiz? What kinda name is Fredward?"

"Mine," I said and winked at her. She smiled and squeezed my bicep. "Ooh, wish I had one of those in my house." She winked back and went to get my water.

My preoccupation with physical fitness started in high school. Honestly I did it because I wanted girls to look at me and I was tired of getting beat up. I got interested in fighting and sparring because Sam and I enjoyed watching MMA and it seemed a logical extension of getting fit. The other thing was that, well, Sam actually had to bail me out of some rough spots with some guys. It would be hard enough to be saved by a guy, but the talk that starts when your girlfriend pulls a football player off no one should have to endure. Actually, it was probably worse for the football player now that I consider it. Regardless, I needed to bring up my game. It turned out to be like fencing-I was sort of good at it. I had some natural instincts in physical situations.

I started bouncing bars a few years back A.S. (After Sam). I've worked at over a dozen so far, but I like the ones where I have to do something. The clubs where I stand on a line and check IDs don't challenge anything but my ability to stay awake. I like a place where I can feel the situation reach inside me and stir up my fear. Then I can put hands on the fear and wrestle it down. It might sound crazy but it helped me get over Sam dumping me, I mean, I never thought about killing myself, but living wasn't that shiny a prospect anymore. Bouncing as second job became a kind of therapy. Bouncing is different than sparring in the gym. No gloves and padding. It's a real fight but I'm on the side of the good guys. I have to keep or restore the peace.

Bouncing isn't about beating people up. The real secret is getting the situation controlled and order restored with a minimum of drama, this is business. I rotated off the door and was watching the whole room, especially the three in back. One was big, with a shaved head. He looked like Gibby if Gib were 6 foot 7 with tats crawling down his neck and under his collar. The stupid one was clearly rotting out from a life of bad choices. He was greasy like he hadn't bathed since the Clinton administration. The one I called Dangerous had most of my attention. He wasn't acting the fool like his friends. He sat quietly, wearing sunglasses in a dark bar, sipping his drink and looking around the room same as me. I was planning how I would take out each one; maybe he was doing the same, because when he saw me looking he mimed shooting me with his right hand.

It was hours before close while the band was on break when it finally happened. The big one had done something-how would Carly put it?-"Inappropriate" with Tammy his waitress. There was a scream and crash where the Three Amigos were sitting and their table was on its side. Tammy was scrambling away from the three who were laughing. As she looked at me her eyes were filled with embarrassment and violation. I felt my ears getting hot. I saw the other bouncers, Dave and Sean headed over, slowed by a bar crowd that was well over fire code in terms of occupancy. It was just me approaching the trio.

"Well fellas, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," I need to work on my tough guy talk. No wonder I never got to work without a script on _iCarly._

The big one who looked like Gibby in a fun house mirror was red-faced and unsteady on his feet with knees locked and no center of gravity. "What are you gonna do stubby? You think yer tough?"

"Stubby? You must have been a riot in the second grade—how many years were you there?" Okay, that was better. "Toughest person I ever knew was a petite blond girl. Her signature move was to break thumbs."

The alcohol was fogging my words before they could reach his brain. He gave me that tilted head look dog's do sometimes that might have meant he didn't understand or maybe he just had water in his ear.

He put out his right hand to shove me. I planted my fingers into pressure points above his knuckles and bent his thumb and wrist in a basic control hold. He was big but his hands weren't strong. He had coasted on sheer size. I stepped into him using his wrist to control him. My right forearm hammered his elbow bending his arm to bring me in closer then I slammed my fist into his collarbone, out again and into the side of his head. Between the blows and the booze he was just about done. I spun out almost turning my back to him and kicked with my left leg into his solar plexus. The force was sufficient to launch his 300 plus pounds off his feet ending with a crash landing on his back. For me the best part was I didn't think at all, it was automatic, memory muscle. You don't plan reflex.

The one I called Stupid came at me with a bottle held over his head swinging it down like he was the Mighty Thor. I blocked his descending forearm with mine, stepped forward so my right leg was behind him, wove my left arm behind his elbow and rode him down to the floor.

That was my mistake. I was on the liquor slick tile with him when the one I called Dangerous appeared to my left and drove his boot into my ribs. It hurt but pain is just something you learn to live with. He had aimed at my head but downward motion made my head unavailable. He was winding up for another blow. I rose up, letting Stupid go, allowing Dangerous to continue his kick. I caught him at the calf, using his momentum to increase my own force. I turned into him from my hips, putting my weight into it. My right hand went into a fist and I uncoiled my forearm into the space just below his sternum. I flowed forward imagining my hand going through him to some place behind his back. All his breath came out in a stinking rush of spit and beer. His whole body undulated like Jell-O in a bowl as he went down, a parade balloon deflating on its way back to storage.

_So much for the minimum of drama,_ I thought.

I turned to see that Dave and Sean were dragging the other two out. Kenny yanked Dangerous to his feet and gave me my second thumbs-up of the day. Fred Benson, Force for Justice. I helped the waitresses get the table righted and the band started into their next set.

At closing I walked Manda to her car. The stars were very visible, like fragments of broken bottle on a blacktop.

"Hey Fredward," she said, "What are you doing here?"

"Walking you to your car?"

She stopped and I could see how tired she was. Working two jobs isn't just therapy for some people.

"I don't know much about you, but yer smart, you look like a million dollars, and you don't belong here. This is where people stop to burn down the clock. You gotta lotta miles left on you."

I shrugged, but didn't say anything. At some point I learned that silence has great value.

"Somebody messed you up good," she added.

I don't know why, but I said this: "I think I caused it. I had to talk her into it, into going to school, I fought her and the system to get her into college, to break the cycle her family was in. It worked. She found a course of study, a professor that opened her eyes and showed her things, options she never thought she had. The next thing I knew…" I stopped. "Fact is, from what I can piece together, she made the right call. He is a great guy. I tell myself I should be happy that she's happy, but I can't seem to be man enough."

That might be the first time I said it out loud. It made my chest hurt, or maybe it was the kick I took. It also hurt to breath. I noticed I was rubbing the silver ham stud in my ear.

"Man enough? Lemme tell you something Fredward, if that girl is any kind of smart, she wakes up some nights and she thinks of you. I'd bet a week's tips on it."

I had no idea what to say.

"Guys like you? I met one, and it's you. And I'm too old to move on it. So, I know this. You ain't someone a girl gets over. Yer someone that sticks around and makes every guy she'll ever be with have to reach real high."

For the first time in the three years since the apuckettlypse I felt a little lighter. "Thanks."

I pressed the button on her keychain and opened her door.

"Hey, you ever need to talk, or wanna catch something on TV, you come by, okay?" she said.

I thanked her, gave her a hug and she hung on a little too long, just like when I was a boy clinging to Carly. I ran my fingers on her face with its creases and imperfections; I noticed some lipstick on her teeth and the black roots of her blond hair. Then I stepped back and closed her in the car. She drove out of the gravel lot and it was just me and a few empty cars. I stared up watching the white crescent moon. Once, Sam and I sat on the fire escape where we shared our first kiss and I told her the crescent reminded me of a boomerang weapon that some superheroes carried in their belts. She laughed and said she couldn't believe she loved someone who thought like that. I couldn't believe it either. I felt so lucky to have that, someone who saw me for what I was, and loved it, regardless of how dumb it might be. That's what hurts so much about losing her, the fear that I'll never find that place again.

I wondered if Sam was somewhere, miles away looking at the same white slash in the black night sky. _Sam, I'm so sorry I couldn't be the guy you needed. I want to be man enough to let you go and wish you well. You deserve the best Sam. If I really love you, I have to mean that._ I heard nothing back but the sound of traffic on the distant highway. Then it was just me, alone. Something I'm still not used to.

Two white lights came onto the lot, and I heard gravel crunching. Gibby was rolling up in my car.

"How'd it go?" he asked as I got in.

"No troubles," I said sitting down in my "office." I noted that the seat was warm. I wondered who might have been sitting there earlier.

"Hey, you got any of those whole grain Fat Cakes?" I ask.

He reached into the back seat and handed me a plastic wrapped tube of fat sheathed in whole grain. I wondered if Sam had ever tried one. And for the first time in too long, I smiled as she strolled uninvited again into my thoughts.

"I thought you said those were suicide," Gibby said.

"Fred Benson walks on the wild side, podnah," I said taking a bite of Fat Cake as we rolled toward that traffic sound in the distance.

**A/N Chapter two is underway. Sam has her side of Seddie**.


	2. Sam AF After Freddie

Disclaimer: Insert favorite "I don't own" text here.

Sam Puckett AF (After Freddie)

Food had always calmed her. Food had been her first, best friend, before Carly, before Freddie, she could count on ham, and fried chicken and, well the variety was like the stars in the sky. She had never met a food she didn't like, even the most objectionable offerings could be spiced and sauced and Iron Chefed into some edible state. By some weird genetic will of the gods the vast quantities of food she ingested never seemed to turn into fat. Maybe the law of calories in/calories out was waived for her because her life had been so hard for so long. But today food gave her no comfort. Even that fundamental friendship was bailing on her. Seated in a coffee shop, she poked her fork into the pie. It was no Galini's that was for sure.

She liked this place however. She liked it because it was so incompetently managed and run. Every time she came here they messed up her order, over charged her, gave her too much change, spilled something, the list of failures was endlessly varied. She watched and took comfort as another angry customer berated the barista over the wrong syrup. Somehow it kept going-The Little Shop that was something about a place that so totally tanked, that messed-up time and again but didn't go out of business that reminded her of herself.

Sam watched out the big plate window at an old man on a bicycle. He was very thin, his silver hair spilling out from under an enormous helmet. The bike was something off a lunchbox in an old photograph. Gleaming chrome fenders, whitewall tires with a basket and tassels streaming out of the handlebars, the bike glided on the sidewalk, easily navigating and weaving through the pedestrian traffic. The old man seemed free, almost blissful, and Sam, filled with envy, craned to watch him. She wondered how people got that old. Life was so hard, such a difficult trip, how was it possible to get where that old man was? She had always found old people irritating. Until James Ryan.

Professor James Ryan was, technically, an older man. But he wasn't irritating, at least not in the beginning. He turned her world upside down. He showed her things, possibilities; he made her feel smart, and special in ways that no older person, no teacher had ever done. Did she fall in love with him? Maybe. Love was so very complicated and she seemed to be less sure of everything today than she was then. But she was certain that what he had appeared to offer was magnetically attractive, that it spoke to something in her that was small and frightened; he represented something she had never had but wanted so much to believe in.

Sam looked around the room. It smelled of coffee beans, baked chocolate and steamed milk. She was here to meet the woman who was replacing her, James Ryan's latest lover. Why was she doing this? Was she nuts, angry, jealous? It made no sense to confront the new girl.

But she was looking at something ugly, that wasn't right. It bothered Sam that this wrong was happening again—like those movie sequels that don't stop because some corporation is greedy or some star wants to recreate some special moment that should be left alone.

She was waiting on Paula Jo Staples. A graduate student lined up as the latest victim-was that too dramatic? No, Professor James Ryan was a dangerous man, a predator; he had destroyed everything Sam had built with Freddie and Carly. It took her months to get Carly back, and Freddie was gone for good.

Sam shook her head as she thought about it. _Tell the truth Sam. You_ _destroyed Seddie. You made a choice. You messed everything up, like you have always done your whole life. _

BREAK**************************************************************************

It ended like this. She knew she had to tell Freddie that she was getting more involved with someone else, that it was no longer professor and star pupil (star pupil! Sam Puckett! Incredible! But it was all her, she had earned the ranking!). He had evolved from charismatic mentor and guide and fascinating story teller and father figure. Their relationship was clearly going to places that would make her a liar, and she would not lie to Freddie.

She had finally stoked the fires of her courage to tell Freddie. She did not want to be exclusive; she wanted the chance to examine her options with someone else. It was very logical, not impulsive, not Sam-like. James presented something so powerfully attractive; she had never felt anything like it, since, well since she concluded that that she was in love with Freddie. As James explained it, life is about stages and she had to be alert because the next one had presented itself.

Freddie was good and he always wanted the best for her. He knew her and would understand her thinking. Carly had not been so receptive when Sam talked with her. It was the angriest Sam could ever remember the brunette being in all the years they had been friends.

Freddie had invited her to dinner at a restaurant she loved, a little neighborhood meat counter with a few tables. The aroma of spices and slow cooking sauces filled the air.

On the table with a purple bow was a new Pear phone Freddie had customized with pictures of them from school, _iCarly,_ and on vacation. It had a special video that he wanted her to see, but she stopped his demonstration, insisting that they talk seriously.

"Freddie, you know I care about you."

He aimed his warm brown eyes into her and smirked, "Sam, you can say 'love'," he reminded her. Love was a hard thing for her to deal with.

"Uhm yeah, about that," her stomach was knotted, her hands trembling. She was breathing too fast.

"I, I, I've, kinda met someone." _There, it's said, I spoke of it!_

She had hit him countless times over the years. Early on that was how she expressed her deepest feelings for him. Once, to protect her from one of her famous public displays of violence he allowed her to hit him while he used his stuffed back pack as a cushion. The blow took his breath and he stumbled to the floor.

This was worse. The look on his face went from confused to deeply hurt, to—Sam had never seen a man stabbed, but this had to be the face that would result from such a strike. She felt her lower lip tremble and she watched his eyes, nose and brow sort of quiver. That brain of his was so sharp that he connected the dots and seemed to go from whatever confident place he been moments ago to some horrible zombie apocalypse in a blur.

"Uh, what? You mean another…guy?" Something in his voice was clearly suggesting he had misheard.

She kept her eyes fixed on his and she nodded slowly, "Yes." The word, so small and soft, seemed to explode between them.

His eyes were starting to flutter and tears were welling up, "Who? No, I mean, I don't need to know."

"It's Professor Ryan."

His head snapped back like he was avoiding some stinging bug, for an instant his voice regained composure, "What? Sam, that isn't funny."

"It's not a joke," her voice was calm and hard as a tombstone. His face did a startling swap of rage, confusion and sadness, with no emotion able to hold its ground.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Am I…? No, I'm not all right! The girl I love just dumped me for," and he paused, "for a dinosaur!" his voice was ragged, his posture tense and coiled. She had expected sadness but not this kind of feeling. Freddie was always so logical. She often was annoyed by his logical, nubbish mind and loved to engage the feisty, angry side, but not tonight, not now.

"I don't expect you to understand," she said.

"Well that's a load off! I was sure worried whether you needed me to understand!" He was shouting, his eyes impossibly wide, shock radiating out in waves from his flesh.

The other couple in the tiny restaurant was looking now.

"Freddie, these things are cyclical, someday I may love you and you won't love me." It was something James Ryan was teaching her.

His look of shattered horror would fit if she had just torn the ear off a puppy, "Wow, you've been shoveling some serious chiz for a while now but I didn't know it had filled the space between your ears!" His voice was cracking.

This was not going the way she had envisioned, her words seemed badly out of place. "We can still be friends," she reached to touch his hand and he jerked his back.

"No, I don't think we can." That wasn't something she had thought about, not really. Freddie was her closest male friend, since grade school he had always been there, like the Space Needle, dependable as the Seattle rain. Still, she was committed to moving ahead, no looking back as James had taught her. If that meant no Freddie, she was Sam Puckett and she had survived a lot worse.

"When you're ready to talk…" she said.

"Whatever," he shot back, standing. He stalked out, but being Freddie some kind of automatic good guy took over long enough for him to pay at the counter for their appetizer and drinks.

She did not watch him walk away, and she would not cry. Sam Puckett would not cry. She felt sick about hurting this great guy, but she was as positive as she had ever been that she needed to go with James Ryan, to what he offered her. She was starting a new chapter in her life and closing doors on an uneven past. Tomorrow had never looked brighter.

She tried several times to return the Pear phone to him, but he had reverted to his full great guy mode and insisted that she keep it. When she started using it she noticed that the video he had wanted to watch with her was gone.

BREAK****************************************************

So, she sat stirring her drink watching the door of the coffee house.

An old fashioned chime gave a high, metallic ring as the door opened. The woman that walked in held Sam's attention and the few others in the shop like a wreck on the highway. She was tall, runway thin with long, flowing white hair and hot rod red lips. She was the color of snow, ice in a polar dawn. Her attire was not like any graduate student Sam could imagine. She was dressed for a royal wedding. She wore something on her head that Sam couldn't call a hat. It was like a tribal headdress, part rings of Saturn, part scientific symbol off the table of elements.

Was this her? She stopped as she walked in and surveyed the room, looking for someone.

Sam stood, "Hi, Paula?" Sam asked.

The striking young woman paused, looked at her and seemed to do some kind of full sensor scan, assessing Sam.

"Paula Jo," Paula corrected her and she extended her vampire white hand for a polite shake. The nails were perfectly sculpted works of art, literally, with exotic three dimensional shapes (gargoyles? Dolphins?) swirling up, they reminded Sam of this comic book artist that Freddie liked, Jack Kirkby was it? Sam didn't really like his rendition of women but they were definitely unique. Lady GaGa's undead sister took the seat opposite Sam at the table. Sam noticed her eyes. Violet eyes, lovely purple, like flowers warmly bursting out of a snow drift. They had to be contacts.

Before her inner circuit breakers could kick-in Sam pointed at the head piece and said, "Can you get satellite on that?"

Paula Jo smiled, "How delightful, James mentioned that you fancy yourself as funny."

Sam wasn't ready for that, but it made sense that James would talk about his previous lover, and Sam tried to remember if he talked about his ex's with her. She cleared her throat, "Yeah, well, thanks for coming. I realize my messages must have seemed, well I can imagine what you might have thought."

Paula Jo stared at Sam, unreadable, like a stick of white marble with a hat and slash of crimson lipstick. She was squinting, trying to understand or possibly look through Sam with some powerful X-ray vision.

BREAK**********************************************************

Sam's first time with James Ryan was instructive in many ways. She had anticipated much more, something spiritual or enlightening, some new plateau or undiscovered country, but it was a great deal like his lectures in class, he was putting on a show, trying to inspire. She wondered if he wanted applause at the climax. He was very good and he took her body to school, but when he finished holding her, talking to her, when he finally rolled away to sleep she felt alone. That had never happened with Freddie.

All of her times with Freddie there had been something to keep. Their couplings were intimate, exploratory, filled with passionate connection, and a great deal of laughter. Like the time they thought they were alone in the Shay apartment only to have Spencer walk through the room, into the kitchen and out again, apparently so consumed with some project that he never noticed the partially clad couple on his sofa. It was never mentioned except by them and always with red-faced delight.

At night, each had caught the other staring, thinking the other was asleep. Freddie told her how he loved to stroke her hair in the dark, and when he slumbered she was content just to watch him breath.

That first night with James she could not sleep, instead she watched James breath, trying to make out the hairs and liver spots in the dark. What filled her was not contentment, instead, something cold whispered that she had made a wrong turn, and she said to the darkness, "What did I do?"

She had reconnected with Carly a few months after Freddie left. Several times Carly joined her and James for dinner. It was the fact that James was using his charm on Carly that made the light go on about what James Ryan might really be. Sam realized how common she still was, and how some things did not change. All the boys want Carly.

She ended it with James Ryan after a year. She could no longer ignore the towering evidence of his infidelities, and the disturbing sham that was his real life. She was pretty sure he did not consider it cheating or false, however. One more thing he had schooled her in was the art of lying. All her life she had considered herself a master liar, but James was from the planet of fiction, that in the hierarchy of dissemblers it was Satan, James Ryan and then a lot of politicians fighting for third. She had come to the conclusion that he was not aware of how deep his own truthlessness ran. He seemed to believe his most outrageous statements, regardless of the facts, as if his uttering that he could fly would turn off gravity. His power was that for a while he made her believe as well.

Her last time with James Ryan was the usual athletic display with attachments, and oils and herbs and music. She had started to laugh about it, what was next, clowns? It seemed to her that he was defying the passing of time by being with her-with every woman. It wasn't about them together, there was no them, it was another chapter in this so far endless story about his life. Her exit was pure, impulsive Sam, she stopped him on the down stroke with the words, "I think I heard the bell, teacher man," and in a jumble of oiled limbs and flying sheets she was gone. His look was indignant, like she was walking out before his finale, but it felt right, not like the night she broke up with Freddie, but more like how Carly talked about what it felt like to go home.

She set out to rebuild her life. All around her was ash and burned stones, wreckage that had to be sorted through. Sam decided men were a dead end, or at least her ability to connect with them was. She concentrated on her school work, and volunteered at a shelter for endangered children. Nothing magical happened there, she did not become the blazing memory that stopped a child from growing up to rob a convenience store, but she did get a better sense of degree. Pam Puckett had neglected her but had never burned her with cigarettes or hot stoves, or let strangers be with her for money. Her past had molded her, but she saw that others had deeper holes to crawl out of.

She had tried to contact Freddie several times over the years. When she was first involved with James she missed her nub, Fredifer; she wanted to joke with him, to battle the best opponent she ever had. She missed laughing, and how they used to surf channels seeing how long it would take one of them to identify what was playing. Freddie was better with movies, and she was better with TV shows. They would fall asleep like that. Couldn't they still be friends? They weren't children anymore. Fred was very easy to find on the Internet: He had a Splashpage, a blog, IM and e-mail addresses. He always responded but his replies were brief and polite. They weren't the connection she craved; she tried to incite him, to rile him up, but his responses were courtesies from a great guy. She wanted to punch him.

Then, as her suspicions that James was not what she thought he was, what he outright pretended to be, gained footing, when she caught him in lies, she wanted to talk to her best friend, the one who prevailed when bad people threatened and her own inner violence was not the best response. He had ridded her of Missy, he had figured out how to send a help message when they were imprisoned in a lunatic's basement, his nerdy, nubby tech skills redeemed them at the web awards. She desperately needed the arms that pulled her in the window when she almost fell off the window washer lift. It wasn't rescue she wanted, Sam Puckett did not need rescue, she needed connection, she needed Freddie, the curious, invisible balance he brought that was as real and untouchable as the air she breathed.

And that need made her feel small and ashamed.

Sam never made that call, because she knew he would take that call, he would help, because it was the right thing to do. She had no business contacting him. She had lost that privilege.

When she ended her relationship to Professor James Ryan she did it as she had accomplished so much in her life: By herself with only herself to depend on. She thought about letting Freddie know, about taking a chance, but she could not bring herself to do that. What would she say, "Hey dork, take me to dinner"?

The worst time she reached out was when she called Gibby. She was desperate, hungry to talk to Freddie and she knew that he and Gibby were working together. She couldn't call Freddie directly, not after all this time, but she could find out how he was doing, find out if he ever asked about her. They used to fight and war and care about all the same things. He HAD to miss her, just a little.

Sam: Hey Gib.

Gibby: Sam! He said brightly, but this is what he thought, _no way are you getting to Fred. You can break my thumbs again, but you aren't going to break his heart._

Sam: Dude, how's it going? _What can I say to find out about Freddie?_

Gibby: Man, it's been a long time. How's school? _You still with that dirty old man professor?_

Sam: Just about done, now to find out what kind of job I can get. Anything out your way? _Go slow, don't race to Freddie._

Gibby: It's pretty tight, unless you're Fred and people keep begging you come work for them.

_Score!_ _He mentioned Freddie first_ and Sam felt her heart jolt. She had to be cool, not appear too anxious, "Yeah, sucks to be him, I'll bet. What are you doing for fun these days?" _Good, nice and easy._

Gibby gave her a rundown of his romantic adventures, which were inexplicable to her in terms of his astounding success but he went on long enough that she had to force it back to Freddie.

"You do all of this in Freddie's car?" she asked.

"Not all of it, I have my own place, but hangin' with Fred improves the lady odds if you catch my drift."

This was her chance, get him to talk about Freddie, put her foot in the door and wedge it open, "Please. That's just science fiction, no girl gets all fluttery when the Nerd King whips out his tech." She regretted it instantly; it was too harsh in her rush to appear uninterested.

Gibby heard the words and felt his teeth clench. While the jab was standard issue Sam, for Gibby it was like swallowing a lit cigarette. _No way. She did not just slam the guy that got her into college, the guy who put up with all her chiz, took care of her when she was sick, paid her way when she was strapped. Okay lady, you got this coming. _"Sam, when was the last time you hung out with Fred?"

She swallowed and closed her eyes, the last time they had spent time in the same room had been when he brought some of her things from his place that she kept when she would sleep over. She remembered it clearly and miserably. "I dunno, why?"

"Sam, that guy you used to make fun of is gone. He goes to the bar every Friday and Saturday," _this was true—he worked at bars on those nights, "_and he hasn't gone home alone since I've been here." _That was a lie. Fred had dated a few times, but his relationship systems were badly damaged._ Sam's heart felt like a dirty icicle in her chest. This was not what she wanted to hear. What did she expect? That Freddie was just waiting for her to come to her senses? _YES! Like he had always done when she behaved badly, he was always so patient, he knew her, understood how her mind worked. She had beaten on him for years and he always stayed._

"Sam, you did him a real favor when you cut him loose. It forced him to grow up and get his life together."

She felt sick to her stomach and her eyes burned where the tears gathered. Had Freddie turned into Pam Puckett, her mother, someone who sleeps around as a way of numbing inner pain? Unless, some graveyard voice mumbled, maybe there was no inner pain. Why would Sam leaving cause anybody inner pain?

"Gib, does he ever ask about me?" the question was straightforward, there was no energy left for pretense.

"I don't think I've ever heard him say anything." _That was true, but Gibby was acutely aware that Sam was with Fred every hour of the day, that she haunted him like a ghost on a midnight walk. But she didn't deserve to hear that._

BREAK****************************************************************

Sam stared at the icy figure across from her. She was out of those fantasy novels Freddie consumed with the same passion she inhaled ham. Sam finally spoke once more. "Uhm, I asked you, I mean, I'm here to…"

Paula Jo leaned in, "Let me make this easy. I know why you're here," she said with a white smile and Sam noted that even her gums were pale, an unripe tomato color.

"You do?"

"Yes, you want to tell me that James Ryan is a loathsome user of impressionable women and that I should run away while I can."

Sam blinked rapidly, "Wow. That _was_ easy-thanks."

Paula Jo's lovely, arctic face clouded over and poked at Sam with a tender, almost piteous gaze, "Samantha, he told me all about you, how dysfunctional you are, that you are a sad, broken girl filled with regret who can't get her life together so you pull down everyone around you into your misery."

That James had told this unusual woman she was dysfunctional, sad and broken, was a blade in her stomach. Did James believe it or was it one of his manipulations? She remembered the headaches sorting his lies gave her. Sam Puckett rose to meet the strike, "Hey, frosty, don't sugar coat it, give it to me straight."

Paula Jo shrugged off Sam's mocking tone then continued, "Samantha, you don't know him, how wonderful he is. I feel so bad for you. You have no idea what you walked away from."

Sam's eyebrows rolled like incoming surf, her lips tightened and she had to un-ball her right fist. There was a time she would have just knocked this Queen of the North Wind into another zip code just for calling her Samantha, but Freddie's influence was here, calming, suggesting she not punch her problems. "My name is Sam, and I know what I lost. James Ryan convinced me to throw away my friends and jump into this jank story he's writing about himself. You're just going to be another chapter in a long, dull book, although the part where you go for a walk in the daylight might be fun—do you glitter or burst into flames?"

Paula Jo looked like she had bitten into something sour and Sam notched one on inner inner scoreboard.

Sam continued, "I knew I wasn't the first student he had seduced, but I thought I was special, that the train had docked."

"Trains don't dock."

Sam felt herself tense, it was happening again, someone smarter, more exotic was taking from her, looking down on her, begging to have a limb broken. Freddie always said she "Hulked out" joking about how her eyes would get milky green and then he'd make this goofy choral sound. She smiled and un-balled her fist again and finished her thought, "Then I found he was with other girls, this was before you, while he was still with me-he hunts female students, keeping some kind of weird count- I'm trying to save you."

Paula Jo spoke like Sam was deficient, "Save me? From what exactly? From what could be the next critical stage of my life?"

Sam nodded. She recognized the words (they were James') and the selfish, this-feels-too-good-to-be-wrong thinking. If she closed her eyes, the words and feelings were hers a year ago. "Listen whitey, I hear what you're saying; I felt the same way. He's like (she wanted to say, "Sven Gollum" but she knew that wasn't right and she couldn't afford to look dumb after the train gaff), I dunno, dude could sell cold to an ice cube." Looking at the polar figure before her she felt proud of the description.

They sat in silence briefly.

Finally, Paula Jo asked, "Why? What do you care what happens to me?" Sam couldn't tell if it was a serious question, judgment was failing, she was seething, conflicted, Freddie telling her to be nice, her own impulses sparking and flashing like loose wires, pushing to pound this powdered sugar donut flat into the floor.

Sam inhaled deeply, gathering her calm, pushing down the volcanic rage that churned behind her eyes, "Because someone showed me how important it is to do the right thing. James is going to keep doing this, it's like drinking or gambling, he can't stop. He's hurt too many people. I wish someone had warned me…" and she stopped because nothing would have stopped her. Carly had tried to talk her out of it, but James' persuasive pitch (indoctrination? Brainwashing?) was too powerful, too practiced. And the thought that she had been fooled, lied to and abandoned by a grown man, the thought that some older male got to know her and then walked away was a shriek that echoed in her deepest parts, causing a storm that made her squirm in her seat.

Paula Jo stood and gave Sam a look of pity usually reserved for children with leukemia. Again Sam felt hot lava ready to burst out of her head. Again, she heard him say, "Saaaaam, Don't do it. We can't punch every problem."

Paula Jo had no idea how close she came to a savage beating, if she had she might not have said this: "I hope you get some help. I feel sorry for you. You've turned your back on something most people only dream or write about," Paula Jo stood up and turned to the door.

Sam rose up, her legs bent to propel her in full attack mode, but this time she calmed herself. There was no Freddie, just her own sense of how to behave, "Well that went well," Sam said to Paula's back. "Sam Puckett, defender of women." But for all her joking, Sam knew that wacky, pale-as-flour, Paula Jo was fundamentally right. And that burned hot and hard in her chest.

Living with your mistakes, that must be how you get old-learning to live with what you did wrong.

Sam continued to sit in the coffee shop, the cream pie still uneaten-some kind of record for Sam Puckett. When asked if she wanted her cup freshened up she replied, "Nah, I'm good," and she recalled that was exactly how Gibby had responded when she asked him to the girls' choice dance. She remembered Freddie's amused snort when she shared her outrage at being turned down by Gibby. She shivered as she recalled Freddie's immediate terror when she clutched his collar. _Wow, can't imagine he wouldn't miss that chick._

"We're gonna be shutting down ma'am," the barista told her. "Can I get you anything else?"

She shook her head, "sorry for taking up the space for so long."

"I'scool" he replied with a smile, and those words took her back. Some days Freddie was everywhere.

She stepped out into the warm night, walking to the shuttle stop. Overhead no stars were visible, but the moon was a pearl crescent broach clipped to a black silk sky.

Sitting on the shuttle bench she looked up at the moon and she felt this more than thought it: _Nub—Freddie, I miss you, I miss us, but I did what I thought I had to do. Remember what you said? 'You never know what might happen,' well, now I know, and I have to tell you—I'd do it again. I just wish that when it was all over that we were together, like a trip that you take or something. You leave home, but eventually you come back._

She remembered the nights on the fire escape, when she and Freddie would lie on their backs and talk. One time she told him the crescent moon reminded her of rolls her mom would make when Sam and her sister were little. When they went back inside Freddie baked some frozen rolls for her, serving them with honey butter and cinnamon sugar. She thought she could smell them now, even in the crowded air of the city at night and she felt the stirrings of an old friend.

Sam was hungry again.

**A/N. In the real world, it would end here. Me? I write to get out of the real world. Chapter three is on its way.**

**If you made it this far, feedback on both chapters is welcome. If you didn't make it this far, you aren't reading this.**


	3. The Girl in His Head

**A/N Chapter 2 was pretty heavy, so I've tried to lighten the tone while steady getting to Seddie.**

**Chapter 3: The Girl in His Head**

Unquestionably, the worst time in Fred's life was a period he jokingly called (when his sense of humor came back) the Apuckettlypse. When Sam Puckett dumped him for an older man Fred entered a shadowy stretch of sad songs and sleepless nights. This black period stripped him down to his very core and left him unsure of everything he once believed in.

While nothing could truly equal the Apuckettlypse for sheer, despair the current week was trying for honorable mention in Fred's roster of times-I-wish-I'd-skipped. It was as if every person with two X chromosomes had gotten a memo from the gods: "Get Fred Benson! Use all available means, find him, hurt him."

The bad week started with a blow that blackened his eye and continued on with his mother, although the argument could be made that it really started with her (doesn't it always come back to who raised us?) didn't she set the stage for how he would relate to women for the rest of his life?

Monday morning he sat in his office cube, pressing a cold pack on the purple, swollen flesh that enclosed his left eye. It throbbed despite the Advil he was popping like mints. Marissa Benson called to chastise him for cancelling his subscription to the Hygiene Inquisition, a service that sent inspectors on surprise visits to homes to perform spot checks on people's lives.

"Fredbear, you cancelled them because they gave you a B- on bathroom cleanliness."

"Mom, I cancelled them because I came home and they were taking water samples from my toilet."

"I just renewed—they have a no-money-back policy—all that money…"

"I don't know how they stay in business—what they do has got to be criminal," _and how many people are there like you, mom, that would pay for this?_

She spoke in a subdued, shameful tone, "Freddie, the report said there were hairs on the rim."

"Aw, for the luva…So what, I don't shave my throne!"

"Freddie! I meant your sink! Are there hairs on your toilet too? What has happened to you? Where is my Freddie? Ever since you dated that, that, Sam!" _I do not like her, that Sam she am. _Fred tried to imagine his mother spitting when she said, "Sam," and he couldn't. _Can mom spit?_

"Mom," he put a _stop now_ sound in his voice.

Which his mother rolled over like a eighteen wheeler on I-80, "She did something to you, made you into some kind of thrill seeker, taking wild chances with cleanliness, you've turned into some kind of no soap daredevil!"

'_No soap daredevil? _"Mom! Put a sock in it!"

"Freddie! Who do you think you are talking to young man?"

_Full tilt crazy, _is what he wanted to say, but he took a deep breath, remembered all she had done for him and why. "Mom…" and he went into the thousandth iteration of his, "I'm a man, mom," speech.

His mom meant well, she loved him, but the subject of Sam Puckett was almost as rough a ride for Marissa Benson as for Fred.

His week continued a steady tumble down a hill landmarked with pain and disappointment. The trip was picking up speed toward a terrifying drop off.

Tuesday morning, the director of his division invited him into her palatial office with its sweeping view of the city. She offered him a selection of drinks and some very expensive looking snacks nested in iced silver bowls and heated pans. She made it exceedingly clear that she thought he was special, that they should get together soon, away from the office to discuss his future. Her contact and actions contradicted every HR training film he'd ever sat through.

She was striking in an unusual, constructed sort of way, as if some crew labored over blue prints at night, putting her together for each day. Her make-up was flawless, masking her age, but her lips seemed a few PSI over specs. She was toned, tanned, laundered and pressed. Her behavior was borderline inappropriate, but what exactly was his problem here? An attractive, older woman was making some pretty obvious overtures, so what? He wasn't scarred, but he wasn't comfortable either. Maybe it was the extensive gold bands and gems on her ring finger. They made him think of some long dead Egyptian queen. He envisioned her coming toward him with a dorsal fin on her head, hungry, circling, with row after row of teeth. He shivered involuntarily. She didn't think he was special; she was conquering some new frontier, planting a flag with her initials right in his backside. He was not a person; he was an object, something to collect.

She sat on the sofa with him and touched his knee briefly, like a breeze, casual, innocent, yet crawling with suggestion, "What happened to your eye?" she asked with a voice accustomed to giving orders.

"I had a fight with my mother yesterday," he explained.

It fazed her not at all, "Your mother packs quite a punch."

"It was a joke," he responded with a grin.

She smiled back, "I figured that out. You're not in Fight Club are you?" she asked.

"First rule of Fight Club…" he said.

"That was my joke," she stated, as if they were comparing senses of humor and she had to win.

"Funny," he replied, the room was incredibly warm and sweat beads like tiny bugs ran down the skin under his shirt.

She smiled and nodded. He was prepared for her next words to be: _"You amuse me Mr. Bond, but you have interfered with my plans for the last time."_

He shifted his weight and brushed a button on his Pear phone that set off an alarm he'd built to bail him out of useless meetings, "Hey, I've got another meeting downstairs," he explained, bolting to his feet.

"Think about where we should go for dinner," she said, her eyes walking over his body, lingering, imagining.

_Holy smoke, did she just undress me? _He thought, _it's like I'm a picture of me, she doesn't even mind if I notice. _She wet her overlarge lips and ate one of the expensive snacks. He was pretty sure that he would be right at home next to the canapés.

He left, feeling like he needed a shower.

That afternoon he had lunch with Gibby. As they finished Gib was updating his Splashpage, "I love social networking, I'm now the emperor of this cafeteria on FiveCube," he said.

Gibby had one eye on his screen and another on Fred's plate, more specifically the outsize cookie that inexplicably came with Fred's healthy options meal. Focused firmly on his PearPad display he asked, "So what happened to your eye? You looked fine when I picked you up at the bar the other night."

"Software architecture is a rough game," Fred said.

Gibby knew that was Fred for _I'm not talking about this_.

The waitress, her nameplate read "Misti" in big black letters, came by, "How is everything?" she asked. She was blond, thin and had piercings on her nose, lip and ears. She was lingering, drawn to Fred's gravity and talking to Gibby as a means to stay around. She asked, "Have you played that new game on your Pear Pad? Oh, what's it called?"

"Happy Dolphins?" Gibby said, watching as the waitress snuck glances at Fred. It was something he was used to, and he had developed a strategy. He called it, "Come for the Fred, stay for the Gibby" (CFFSFG)

"Yeah! It's like, addictive!" she announced.

Gibby motioned to Fred, "That guy there, he wrote it."

Her eyes went wide, "Rad! That is like the coolest thing ever."

Fred looked up from his PearPhone display, "huh?"

"I was telling Misti about Happy Dolphins," Gibby explained.

Fred's inner lights went on. He had played CFFSFG enough now to recognize the signs. "To be accurate, my team wrote a component."

Gibby smiled and continued to chat with Misti. She went to one of her other tables but both men were confident she would return multiple times before they left.

"I think Alice Hedlund is coming on to me," Fred stated.

Gibby looked up, "The divisional director for North America?"

"Yeah."

"She as hot in person as in the company orientation video?"

Fred nodded reluctantly, yeah, in a weird CGI way."

"YES!" and Gibby did a little touchdown dance in his seat. Strangely, even Fred thought it was cute.

"Give me every nasty detail," Gibby instructed, and Fred sighed, relaying what he imagined were the high points of the meeting in Gibby's view.

"You gonna move on it?"

"Gib, I'm glad you're in my corner and all, but I'm in a relationship, remember Ashley?"

Gibby gave him a skeptical squint, "Have you learned nothing from me? Besides, is it really a 'relationship'?" he made air quotes with his fingers.

"What?"

"Seems kind of fast, to me-just sayin'," Gibby shrugged and returned to his Splashpage.

Ashley, a lovely, brilliant young woman was a friend from the Seattle time. Freddie had leveraged her beauty to trick Carly and Sam when they had hired an idiot as an intern in the next to last season of the web show. He reconnected with her at the Pear World Convention a few months back.

"Oh, that's rich," Fred said, "Mr. 'Stay for the Gibby,' who has longer lines than Dingo World waiting for the front seat of my car is questioning the quality of my romantic life."

Gibby shrugged again, "Just sayin'. You gonna eat that?" he asked indicating Fred's cookie.

Fred slid the plate toward him.

Any gypsy reading his Tarot would have told Fred to hide, but Fred didn't know any gypsies, so he walked blindly into the next body slam from Fate.

Ashley and Fred had been dating for weeks, and while it wasn't magical, it was very comfortable, like a favorite sweat shirt, and even as he thought it, he made a note never to tell any women she was like a favorite sweat shirt. The night after he and Gibby did lunch, Fred and Ashley went to dinner.

Seated in a very posh restaurant, Ashley, lovely and intoxicatingly feminine looked him in the face and asked, "So, what happened to your eye?"

"Software architecture is a rough game," he said. What the heck, it was a good line and it was new to her. He looked at her and thought about all of the beautiful women he had been lucky enough to meet. He especially liked brunettes, Carly Shay, Shelby Marx, Tori Vega, he felt his mind going blonde when he heard Ashley say:

"You are so funny," she smiled, sipping white wine from a fluted glass.

"Thanks, Carly and Sam never thought I was." The words had barely left his mouth when he felt the temperature drop in the room.

Sitting there Ashley seemed to gather herself up, marshaling her resolve, "Fred, you know I care about you."

It was like he swallowed an ice cube. The last time he heard those words it kicked-off the Apuckettlypse. "Yeaaah?" he asked, there was an anxious tension on his neck, like he was sticking his hand into a dark pool in some primeval rain forest—what lurked under the surface?

"I think you have issues," she said tenderly.

Swell. Of course he had issues. His mother was neurotic, gathering satellite intelligence on his housekeeping, his boss wanted him in a trophy case, and even he didn't want to consider how his eye got plastered shut; find someone with no issues, he wanted to say. Instead, he asked, "This isn't about the bathroom in my apartment is it?"

She raised her eyebrow, "No. This is, well, how can I say this? There are too many of us in this relationship."

"Well I… what?" _What did that mean?_ "Hey, if this is about Gibby and the car, that's a quick fix." _She was ahead of Gibby-she agreed that it was a relationship._

She shook her head, "No, Gibby's a huggy bear. I love it when he's around," That was something about the Gibster that Freddy had come to terms with—his mystical and mystifying charm with some women—a lot of women when Fred did the math.

"No, it's Sam," Ashley said.

"Sam?" He knew exactly where this was going, but playing dumb felt really good at the moment, being smart hadn't done much for him this week. He was looking at headlights coming straight at him.

She smiled, "The Sam you mentioned not two seconds ago, the girl that 'cut her shape in my heart' that was how you described her when you talked about her on our second date."

Oh butter. Had he really done that? Those words? On their second date? His left eye throbbed, "Yeah, I probably have some things to work out on that topic."

"Fred, she goes everywhere with us, well, you bring her along."

He remembered telling Ashley about Sam early on, but he did not recall it being a recurring theme. He actually thought he had done a good job of portraying the whole thing as part of a closed room in a big house.

She sipped her white wine and he noted her hand was shaking as she said, "Fred, I'm aware when we go to the movies, when we eat at a restaurant, when we watch television, when we wake up, you aren't always with me. You are somewhere else having conversations in your head with someone who isn't me."

He didn't doubt it. Every date he'd had eventually got the Sam Slam. No woman was as feisty, as funny, as irritating or engaging. Sam pushed him, made him be…better? He remembered once looking for a parking place with Ashley. There was a dirt lot being prepped for construction. He heard Sam telling him to park there, they were going to be late if he kept circling for a legal slot ("man-up Fredly, I'm not missing the opening act because your skirt is wrinkled"). He parked on the dirt and Ashley kept telling him that they were going to be towed. He didn't cave, but he worried about it until they got back to the car. He wouldn't have stressed if he had been with Sam. Ashley fed his need to follow the rules. Sam was freedom. Sam wasn't a comfortable sweat shirt; she was an amusement park that was open all night—if you could afford the price of the tickets.

He, on the other hand, appeared to be the worst date on the west coast.

Ashley continued, "Last week you and I were on the balcony of your apartment looking up at the stars, it was so romantic but I looked over at you, and the look on your face, it broke my heart."

Little worms made of sharp glass wiggled inside his stomach. Had the demon so possessed him that he couldn't be with this smart, sexy lady?

"I don't know what you need to do, but we can't be a real couple, I can't compete with the girl in your head."

_The girl in his head?_ He understood, but was lost at the same time. Was she real or just a creation, some crazy mutant evolved from memory and wishful thinking? If he spent the afternoon today with Sam would they have anything in common? Would they still play, and fight? And make-up? Which did he like more? The battle or, man, the making up with Sam was so sweet. Everything with Sam was sweet. Did he just remember some distorted looking glass thing? What about the weekend they celebrated Sam getting into college? That little bed and breakfast in a house that claimed to have ghosts. It was unseasonably cold and they got into some argument about it because Sam never packed with any sense of preparation. Then they made up, huddled under the covers drinking hot coffee and laughing at some late night infomercial for male enhancement.

He suddenly focused on Ashley sitting across from him, "Welcome back," she said, her eyes looking resigned to some proven, but unpleasant theory. "I'm going to go, now" she added, finishing her chardonnay, wetly licking her red, perfect lips. He wasn't scared watching her do that, just very sad.

He stood with her and said, "Ash, I, I'm so sorry—you deserve somebody who…. He didn't finish, concluding with, "I'll see you home."

She replied, "No, I could use some alone time," she stepped into him and kissed him softly. "You are a great guy, I hope I'm still around when you get this straightened out," she squeezed his hand and walked away. He watched her get smaller and finally be gone.

It was several minutes later when he realized Ashley had driven. He had watched his ride walk away. He smiled, that was sorta Samish of her. He checked his watch. It was too early to call Gibby, he'd just be warming up the passenger seat.

Well, it was a nice night and he had a lot to think about. As he walked, absently fingering the Pear phone in his pocket, it dawned on him.

So what do you do when you have a run of chizzy events and you don't have a chemical dependency problem? If you are Fred, you reach out to your best friend, your oldest, longest lasting relationship. You call Carly Shay.

He opened the Pear phone and said to it: "Carly Shay" and the phone dialed. In 5,4,3,2,1, she was picking up. Fred almost leapt into the phone, he related his travails, he poured out his aching, bloody insides to the person who knew him best and accepted him without question. It came out in a foamy rush, and he had to catch his breath when finished. Then he sat at a bus stop bench and waited for her words, warm and buttered to wash over him, the friendly comfort that he missed.

"What a pair you have, Freddie," were the first words out of her mouth.

Fred looked at the phone dubiously, terrified for an instant he'd screwed up and called Ashley. "Carly?" he said.

"I cannot believe you are moaning to me after the mess you have allowed to metastasize in our lives."

_Metastasize_? "Uhm, what?"

"Poor Sam is here, working every day to put her life together, needing our support and you have done nothing NO THING, to help her. She delayed her graduation, but she's finishing, Freddie, do you even care? Do you care about what she has accomplished? Do you even know? Instead you are there, making like Don Juan Demarco with everything in a skirt. You are a little, little man."

Is this what hell feels like?

"Carly, what are you talking about?"

"I told you months ago that Sam had broken up with the Geezer, then I waited for you to do the right thing, but you just stayed out there growing your contact list of party girls."

Yeah, this has got to be hell. For a logical guy, being where nothing makes sense is pretty much damnation.

"Carly, I don't understand…"

"That's your problem, it has always been your problem, Freddie has to understand. For such a smart guy you are so dumb sometimes. Well, I'm telling you your rough week is just starting, Freddie, you need to come home and settle some things."

"Uh…"

"Stop! Don't give me any of your calculated rationales Mr. Hotsy Pockets."

_Hotsy Pockets? Fred Benson: microwave snack._

"Tell me why, Freddie, you have always gone after her, when she thought she was crazy you went after her at the hospital, but this time, when she needed you most, you stayed away, you never reached out, no calls, no e-mails—nothing. Why?"

What was bubbling up in his gut felt a lot like shame. Was she really hurting? He had deliberately avoided knowing anything about her. When Carly told him that Sam was no longer dating Fossil Poppa he did that Gibby dance in his head, and he thought about calling her, e-mailing her, texting her, but he never did.

Why not?

He had no answer, but he listened as Carly went on, and on and on some more. He heard some words, "faith" "loyalty," "forgiveness," "love" was in there several times, but it was kind of like what dogs might hear when people talk to them: just a lot of sounds. Finally she seemed to stop or maybe she passed out, maybe the battery died in his phone.

"Carly?"

"Yes?"

"I'm on my way."

"About time."

That was how Fred and Gibby found themselves on a plane to Seattle. Gibby was working Splashpage on his Pear Pad. Across the aisle a cute girl was looking at both of them. Gibby was aware of her watching but Fred was deep in his planning mind, thinking about seeing Carly and Spencer but mainly Sam. He was imagining scenarios and how he would respond to each.

"Hey Fred."

Fred turned kind of haltingly toward him, "huh?"

Sorry about the Ashley stuff, dude. She's right, you are a great guy—I'd date you."

"Thanks, but I think you and I are as close as we're ever going to get."

"Even if I promise to never break your heart?" Gibby reached over and touched Fred's knee, "We should talk about your future with the company," Fred couldn't even describe what Gibby did with his tongue and lips but if wasn't pretty.

"Sorry no Broke Back iCarly for me thanks."

"You said, 'iCarly'," came a female voice. The cute girl was standing in the aisle looking at them. Her hair was very short and she had pendulous earrings flaring into silver fans.

"Yep," Gibby said and both of them prepared for what might be coming.

"You're the Statue of Giberty, and you are Freddie," she said pointing at each of them.

"Fan of the show?" Freddie asked.

She nodded, "Oh yeah, totally. My name's Yvonne-Why did you guys stop making it?"

"We all went away to college."

"You should totally do it again—I'd watch."

"Thanks Yvonne, glad you liked it," Fred said.

"So, how did you ship?" Gibby asked. Internally, Fred winced, man, Gib was going right for CFFSFG. Usually he worked the autograph angle first.

"Honestly?"

"Sure, we're long past any fan war stuff," Gibby assured her.

"Cam all the way," she said cheerfully.

Fred could not hide an enormous smile as he pictured this flight of CFFSFG going down in huge, plumy flames.

After Yvonne took her seat with autographed napkins from each of them, Gibby turned to Fred and said,

"You know, it's probably a good thing that we're making this trip."

"Yeah, I think Carly made a good point about me needing to set some things right," Fred said, but in his heart he had no idea what he was going to say when he saw Sam. It was hard to plan with bottle rockets erupting in your stomach.

"Actually, I was thinkin' it was time to get out of town for a while. Things were getting' kinda hot,"

Fred stretched back in his seat, "I'm a little afraid to ask. What are you talking about?"

"Remember Patrice?"

"Werewolf Patrice or the new one, Tourette's Syndrome Patrice?"

"Werewolf."

"Yep, I remember."

"Well I dug her up on SplashPage and one thing led to another, and…"

"And you glued on the hair again?"

"Pretty much."

"So?"

"So, turns out she's kinda married."

"'Kinda married'? Dude!" Fred's mouth dropped open. "I thought you screened for that kind of thing. What's the husband's deal?"

"Not as hairy as she likes it."

"Yeah, I sorta guessed that part, what I meant was, does he know?"

Gibby nodded, "I don't think he'd threaten a stranger."

"Threaten?"

"Yeah, crazy stuff about body bags and stuff. But it's like they say, when the five roll, there's always the backstreets."

Fred nodded but Gibby lost him after the body bag reference. Gibby still said things that made sense only to Gibby. You hang with him, you hear your share.

Fred couldn't get the conversation with Carly out of his head. "This is the second worst week of my life; you should have heard Carly on the phone. She wasn't making any sense. She kept going on about how I was with all these women. It was the closest to nuts I've seen her since Space Camp. I mean, she knows me, where would she get the crazy idea I was hookin' up like that?"

Gibby seemed to get smaller in the seat next to him.

Fred looked at him sideways, Gibby looked like a little kid that had broken some forbidden object, "Gib?"

"Yeaaaah, uh, I might have said something that might have, well, maybe, y'know, oh boy."

Fred turned and stared at Gibby, "what did you say to Carly?"

"Nothing, I haven't talked to Carly since I went home for Christmas."

Fred's brain was assembling the puzzle, but key pieces were missing, "Gib, what aren't you telling me?"

Gibby twitched in his seat, and seemed to spend a lot of time adjusting the magazines in the seat pouch in front of him, not wanting to look at Fred. "Well, Sam called me one night, she was fishing around, I mean, Sam, calling _me_, what is that about? I knew something smelled bad. We got to talking, I dunno, she said some stuff, kinda made me mad. I mean, y'know, you did so much for her, for me, for, well, y'know, I just…"

"Dude, just the facts," the purple mass that cradled his left eye pulsed with pain.

"I mighta made you sound like you were getting' busier than you really were.. Are…, maybe."

"Oh man, you told Sam I was, - you?"

"Kinda, I mean I dialed it back a bit to keep it real."

Fred rolled his eyes. "When was this?"

"A while back, before Ashley, or I probably woulda used that instead. Y'know, made it a real relationship—no offense."

Fred blinked as that settled in, then he said, "Sam called, and you didn't tell me?"

Gibby raised and lowered his tray table for no apparent reason, "Dude, I've watched you for a long time now, working out, working crazy hours at the office, throwing cave men truck drivers out of bars, but, I haven't seen you, y'know, **happy,** for, well, I just thought, she might make things worse. You don't need worse. Maybe I made a bad call." He put the tray table back up, then he continued. "She broke my thumbs, painted that stuff on my head, but I couldn't let her do anything more to you. Do you remember how you were when she swung the axe of freedom?"

Fred nodded. He hated that time. So full of pain and loss, and doubt and every bad thing you could name. And like a light coming on in a dark basement he knew why he never called Sam.

Fear.

Running from her was part of their early relationship when she used to brutalize him. He was still vaguely ashamed of the time she thought he had spoken of their first, secret kiss. She charged him and he shrieked like a girl fleeing in stark terror. But that fear was nothing compared to the thought that she could do to him what happened the night of the Apuckettlypse. He never wanted to look into that shadow again. His lip curled into his trademark smirk. He told himself that he worked out, toughened himself up, threw big, rough, dangerous men out of rough, dangerous places because he liked to look his fear in the face, he liked to get his hands around it and wrestle it down.

What a load of chiz.

After all these years he was still afraid of Sam Puckett. He'd gotten around the fear of wedgies, hurled fruit, random and orchestrated acts of cruelty, but that beautiful blond demon could still hurt him like no one else on the planet.

Sam called Gibby, what did that mean?

Fred watched the clouds like cotton wads creep under the wings. Finally he said. "Thanks Gib. I asked you to come out and get my back. I can't be mad at you for doing that."

Gibby just nodded and they did a fist bump, "I just can't quit you man," Gibby said.

Fred slept on the plane—sort of. It was that half sleep where he was plugged-in to the world around him dimly but he also thought about meeting Sam again, he was trying to plan it, he needed a plan. He was going to put away any fear, he was going hug her like a friend, but he also reflected on the black eye that still pulsed with a curious life of its own and the memory had an electric, biting quality.

_At the grocery store late, rain pouring down, buying some items to clean his bathroom—he'd gotten a low grade from Hygiene Inquisition-when he noticed the couple in the parking lot. _

_At first Fred wasn't sure what he was seeing, he was in a hurry to get to his car with a minimum of wetness, but as he paused it was clear. The man was choking the woman on the side of the building. It was slow and insistent, not violent or loud, but her head was slowly banging back against the brick. Big, tan hands squeezing her throat._

"_Hey," Fred called out, "Miss, are you all right?"_

_The man turned toward him in what Fred remembered as slow motion, he had the enflamed features of someone chemically altered. The woman's face was glassy eyed and her skin seemed kind of blue, both were drenched with rain, the pounding water creating a kind of halo around them._

_Fred felt that heat in his ears, and he picked up his pace moving toward them, "Hey!" he said again, he dropped his plastic bags and began to run toward the couple._

_Fred grabbed the man in a karate choke, thumb knuckle into the pit of the man's throat, spinning him around, he was slick with rain water and hard to hold. _

"_Don't hurt him!" the woman shouted, "Please, don't hurt him—I love him!" she coughed as she spoke, her voice raw from being choked._

_Fred smelled alcohol as the man took a leisurely, drunken swing. Fred blocked it with movement so slow they might have been demonstrating proper technique. Fred stepped in rolling the man over his hip onto the tar stained pavement where he landed with a splash. _

_And the woman hit Fred in the left eye—was it just her hand? It took Fred totally by surprise and forced him back._

"_I love him, love him! Get away!" She seemed very sober, angry, yes, but she knew what she was doing._

_And the woman bent over the drunken man who continued to slap at her as he struggled to his feet and stumbled away in the rain. She followed, pleading with him clinging to him. "Honey?" Fred heard her say, "baby are you okay? I'm sorry, I love you babe, I love you."_

_And the vast world of men and women, couples, lovers, relationships seemed to expand and contract for Fred as the depth of his own cluelessness was starkly exposed. He had done the right thing. He always did the right thing. And it wasn't enough. Not now, not with back then with Sam._

_Anger._

_It wasn't just fear of Sam that kept him away. He was mad. He had done everything right and she walked away from him. _

And the captain was announcing their descent, describing the weather in Seattle—it was raining.

**Break*************************************

At Bushwell Plaza Fred and Gibby knocked on the door of the Shay apartment. Marisa Benson was working a late shift at the hospital so getting a tick inspection by mother could wait.

Fred felt jittery, blasted with adrenaline, like he was about to give a big presentation. He drew in a breath, hearing familiar voices behind the door, Carly and Spencer. And? Did he hear Sam too? He controlled his oxygen flow, felt his heart surging against his ribs. He was going to stick with his plan, hug everybody and put away any hurt he had. These people meant too much to him. He planned some of his words, he was going to say, "It's good to be back, gosh I've missed you guys."

What happened next was not clear to him, he did not remember the door opening, only that something hit him in the left eye, he knew the feel of that freakish strength all too well. Most people have to have some kind of radiation accident to obtain that kind of power, but Sam Puckett was born with it.

He was aware of the ceiling of the Bushwell hallway. He hadn't seen that in many years—new smoke alarms? He heard Sam's voice:

"**Welcome home Freddie!"**

And just before he blacked out, he heard himself say, "Good to be back, gosh, I've missed you guys."

**A/N Chapter four is underway, but expect some delay as real life is crowding my writing time. Please feel free to comment on the trip so far. Thanks for flying with us.**


	4. Sam Slammed

**Disclaimer: Does anybody need one at this point?**

**A/N The original draft of chapter four was over 7000 words and growing when I decided I had enough material for several chapters (such is the slow genius of WhiteKnightro), so posting it in digestible chunks gets some new material out there and gives me some breathing room to shape up the remaining chapters. My goal is to produce the best possible story and not to waste any reader's time. Sometimes I succeed.**

**My thanks to messy heart, Julefor, Darsnider, mizkntuhke and all the reviewers of the story to date. Your questions and observations helped me sharpen my pencil.**

**Chapter four: Sam Slammed**

**Sam's POV:**

Everybody is screaming and running, like those Japanese movies where big lizards are stepping on everything. Carly is shrieking like a braking car. Gibby is losing his mind, is he calling me "Psycho"? He looks the same as I remember, bigger maybe, heavier. Even Spencer seems ticked and he's moving like he got thrown under a bus. Benson is out cold on the hall floor.

Screw 'em all. Benson has the stones to come back here, he gets what he gets.

_I should not have hit him. _

"Sam, how could you?" Carly says with that mother/keeper look she gets, like she's going to send me to my room.

But Gibby is about to pop a vessel, his face is bright red, like a cheap marinara sauce, "I knew it! I knew you'd do something like this! What is your problem Puckett?"

"Dial it down Gibson," I tell him but he's not backing off.

"No! You had no right to hit him!"

Okay, my anger surprised even me. Carly told me that the knock on the door was Freddie and every bit of calm I've spent the last two years building just ran out of me. Everything actually went red. I couldn't believe she would set me up, well, yeah I can, that's how she rolls. But Freddie thinking he can come back because CARLY tells him he'd better?

Chiz head.

It was kind of scary I'll admit. I haven't lost it like just now in a long time. I think I ran over Spencer to get to the door. When I saw Freddie standing there I only had two options and I went with "hit him." I just couldn't do the other.

_I should not have hit him._

Spencer is leaning over Freddie, "Wowza!" He says, "How hard did you hit him? Look at his face!"

_He's hurt?_

Gibby, glaring at me, walks over to the two of them and says, "Nah, he had that before. Don't help him. He's got it. He's got it. Fred! Round two—ding ding," and he makes a rope tugging motion with his hand.

Freddie, flat on his back, flexes, a kind of wave starts in one end of his body, kicking with his legs, without using his hands or arms he comes completely to his feet.

Okay, that's new.

Now here comes the old. The whine. What will it be? "Saaaam!" or maybe, "Darn it Sam! Did you have to hit me?" Said in a high, girly way that makes me wonder how I ever was attracted to him. Bring it Fredward. I'm so ready for this.

"Hoo eee, Samson," he says, rubbing the purple black left side of his face.

His face! What happened? I didn't do that; _please don't let me have done that._ Did he just call me a cute name?

"You still got it," He says, "If I get a vote, next time hit me in the back with an orange." He winks at me!

"You don't get a vote," and I say it with enough anger that I'm pretty sure my spit would eat through the floor. The rage-it's like hot chili boiling over in my head. Where is this coming from? I can barely contain it.

Freddie smiles at me, ignoring my tone. He's staring at me, for like a long time.

_Say something._

Finally he speaks, "Right, guess I'll ask Carly for some ice." And he turns toward Carly.

"Hey lady," he says, "Whoa! You look great! I like the haircut, kinda Tinkerbell action workin' there," and he hugs her. She smiles and they stand for a while feeling, I dunno, warm and happy, or something. My stomach flips. Suddenly I'm so hungry I could do that snake thing with my jaw and just swallow a cow.

"Freddie, you look amazing, I like the aftershave. How was the trip? I'm so sorry about…" and Carly pauses.

_I want you to hold me. How do I look?_

"Hey, it wouldn't be homecoming without a beat down from the princess." He looks at me, smiling like a monkey, "Carly didn't tell you I was coming until just a minute ago, right?"

How did he know?

"I know because of how you hit me."

This is creepy, he's reading my mind.

_Read my mind—please._

"When you plan your attacks you have your butter sock ready. When you're taken by surprise you rely on just your fists," and he rubs his face again, "Thank you for not telling her," he tells Carly.

Carly gives him a playful fist to the shoulder; Spencer comes over. Freddie grabs Spencer's pony tail and gives him a "really?" look.

"Hey, I'm an artist. I had to do it sometime."

They laugh and shake hands. "Hey, you do smell good," Spencer tells him.

Gibby joins them and I feel like I'm looking through a window. There should be snow falling on me.

"Hey gang, let's bring it inside," and Spencer motions us back into the apartment holding the door. I'm kinda dazed so I'm the last to go in. Spencer blocks me for just a second, "You okay?" he asks.

I nod my head, "Sure, no troubles. I don't get why everybody is pumped about me dusting Fredwina."

He looks at me like I just pulled a cat out of my left nostril, "Sam, you haven't seen him in two years. As greetings go it's kinda—an odd choice."

I just shrug.

He gives me a half smile squeezes my shoulder and lets me in. Something is wrong in my head, but I remember why I had a crush on Spencer when I was younger.

Freddie is staring at me across the room as Carly drags me into the kitchen. "Sam, what happened just now?" she asks.

I shrug again, as an answer it kind of works for me.

"Just promise me you won't hit him again."

"Promise me a taco truck will finish the job it started before the night is over," I tell her.

She gets this look on her face like she has to chiz real bad, "Sam, are you okay?" she asks.

Shrug.

She turns from me slowly, digs in the freezer, pulls something out and walks it over to Freddie, glancing back at me.

Freddie looks at it and smiles, "This is a Boogie Bear cold mitten for kids. 'Boo Boo Boogie' I used this when I was a kid and…" Freddie is looking at me, "well, I had some injury."

Freddie is different looking. Same brown hair and eyes the shade of good root beer, but the goatee thing, the haircut, the earring, black jeans, the penny tee, what the heck is CFFSFG? It works for him. And his right arm has this—vein. It stretches from under his sleeve, rolls over a rockin' bicep/tricep combo and joins a bunch of other veins in his forearm. Am I staring at it? He was into fitness when we were together but this? He looks…hot. Really, really hot.

_Momma like._

STOP! Not doing this again. I got a life now, I did my Freddie time. I got my mind back. I don't need any more crazy. It wasn't that good. I got out because I found something better. Or I thought so at the time. Anyway, this is how he comes back? All those times I tried to call him, text him, write him. He always responded back, so polite, just like now. Nice guy Freddie. Do the-right-thing-Freddie. I couldn't rile him, couldn't get him to push back. I got your message Freddie.

You wanted it over. You were glad to unload me. Mad Sam, too-much-trouble Puckett. I always knew you wanted out; you just couldn't end it so you waited till I found someone else. I'll bet you were so happy when I gave you an out.

It's what men do. They lie. My father said he was coming back and never did. James Ryan lied.

I hate Freddie. I HATE him.

_He came back._

It's kind of awkward at first, but Carly does the hostess thing, serving her special lemonade. Spencer shows Freddie and Gibby his latest work. It's made of lots of old electronics, cassette tape recorders, a big tube TV, something called an 8 Track, Freddie is nodding, he keeps looking over at me. Techsack is being really nice to everyone. I mean, Freddie was always nice, but this time he's added some kind of weird overdrive to it. This has to be one of his plans. He maps stuff out.

Spencer asks, "So Freddie, what happened with the face?"

"Uhm, Sam hit me," and he glances at me like he's not sure why.

"Your eye was jacked when you got here, nerdcompoop," I tell him.

"Yeah, and you hit him in the same spot—nice welcome. You steal blind peoples' dogs, too?" Gibby says.

I look him in the eye, "You feeling froggish Gibson? Jump."

"I'm right here, Puckett."

"That a challenge?"

"I'm not a dumb kid anymore Sam."

"No, you're a dumb adult."

"SamGibby!" I've never heard Carly smush the two names together before. Usually she's only mad at one of us at a time.

"Gib, it's cool," Freddie says. He's not mad that I hit him? It makes me want to hit him again. I haven't felt this crazy since we first started dating.

"So what happened with the face?" Spencer asks again.

Freddie starts to speak, "Oh, yeah, well…

"Software architecture is a rough game," Gibby says and we don't get any more of an explanation because Gibby goes off on one of those weird, "What's a radish?" "Can I keep this bucket of hair?" back roads that make me and so many of our old fans wonder what planet he's really from.

We sit around the living room and play catch-up. That vein in Freddie's arm. I can't take my eyes off it. What is wrong with me? It's like he's meat—exotic bacon. I want to touch that vein, that arm, bite my way up to his neck…

STOP! Take a breath, girl. This is the liar who didn't think enough of you to come after you.

_He came back._

I really want to hit him again. My fists are clenched, knuckles going white.

Carly serves some cracker things that her squeeze, Stuart, showed her how to make. They're pretty good, but the worst food I've ever had was pretty good.

Everyone takes a turn talking about what they've been doing. Spencer talks about his art, how he finally got representation at a gallery, making sales, getting some strong reviews. Carly tells about staying in school, taking the GRE, working on her masters, interning at the TV station, how she's sorry that Stuart her boyfriend couldn't be here. I like Stuart but I hate his name. Stuart is a dumb name. Gibby talks about working at Pear as an administrative assistant and Freddie's stooge. When he's not talking he's got his phone out, typing with his thumbs. Freddie talks his nubby nerd talk about computers and tech/blah /nerd/blah dork/blah geek/blah. Yeah, Freddie, you are mister information technology. Tell us a few funny stories about meetings you've been in. Everybody has a funny story to tell about their lives. I don't have a lot of funny stories. I've spent the last two years putting my life back together when you couldn't be bothered to do the right thing when it counted most.

What about the skanks I want to say to him, what about all the hook-ups? Didn't you learn anything from watching Pam Puckett hop from guy to guy? The thought of him sleeping around has me ready to eat my own teeth.

_He wouldn't do that. _

Freddie says, "Hey, sorry, IT presentations only have so many funny things happen. I'd better stop."

"Please," I say.

He smiles at me like one of those robot people that hand out tracts and worry about whether you're going to heaven, "Your turn, Sam. What have you been doing?"

"Like you care?" C'mon, Fredsnot, fight me.

"Sam!" Carly says, again with the mom tone, well like good moms, not mine, that's for sure.

He sits there smiling. I imagine a halo on his head and a bird landing on his finger. Saint Freddie.

The sensation I get looking at him. It's so strong. It must be hate. I've felt like this before…

"No, it's okay. I understand," he tells us.

"You understand? Tell me what you understand?"

Spencer is looking at us like we just set the room on fire. Then he says, "Sam is working for Fat Johnny."

"Fat Johnny, the restaurateur?" Freddie asks with that eyebrow thing he does.

_That face. I've missed that face._

"No, Fat Johnny the astronaut that no rocket can lift. How dumb are you Benson?" I want to grab his collar and shake him till those delicious chocolate eyes are in the same hole.

Spencer continues, "Fat Johnny the entrepreneur. He owns all kinds of food businesses. You know, Down Muffin?"

"Fat Johnny is Down Muffin?" Freddie is clearly impressed now.

"Yep," Spencer replies.

"Man, those things are the Gallini pies of muffins," Freddie says.

I know what Spencer is about to do and I brace myself. Spencer being Spencer jumps up and launches into the Down Muffin jingle:

"**You ain't seen nothin'!'"** and he plays air guitar, grinding for feedback.

What I don't expect is Gibby joining in. Gibby whips his tee shirt off leaving no doubt he's definitely heavier, and steps to Spencer, he starts slapping his own air guitar and singing: **"You AIN"T seen nothin'!"**

They stare each other down like they are going to wrestle on the floor, each one strumming the air trading off:

**Spencer: "I said you ain't seen nothin'!'"**

**Gibby: "Tell me you ain't seen nothin'!"**

They are so into it I can kind of hear feedback.

Freddie joins them in the center of the room, he's got his Pear phone out framing a photo or maybe the movie app: "Do it! Can't stop now!"

Then, Carly runs over with them and sings: **"You know you ain't seen nothin'!" **She's holding her empty glass in front of her face, faking a microphone.

And they all look at me. I add flatly, "You ain't seen nothing.'"

It doesn't even slow them down. They don't need me. He doesn't need me. Freddie continues filming with his phone while the other three harmonize like cats screwing in an alley:

"_**Till you're dooooowwwwwwn on the muffin!" **_they stretch out the sound so that if I didn't know what they were saying it would sound like a choir made up of people with speech problems.

The famous finish of the Down Muffin add is that the big-lipped singer who made the song a hit looks into the camera, takes a big-lipped bite out of a giant muffin and winks at the camera. Carly, Gibby and Spencer all cram their heads into Freddies' Pear phone space and pretend to take a bite out of an invisible muffin then wink like the choir with speech problems got hit with pepper spray.

"Shoosh Yeah!" Freddie shouts, "iCarly Lives!"

And the four of them are all falling together, laughing and hugging.

I look at Carly with a WTF face.

"What?" Carly says, "They're great muffins!"

I sit away from them even farther outside the window than before.

They all go back to their seats and Spencer continues, "Anyway, Sam took over this coffee shop Fat Johnny owns and has really turned it around."

"That's fantastic. You always had a flair for business. Man, the way you mobilized those kids when we did the penny tees—amazing. Combine that with your affection for food—talk about a win/win," Freddie says. He looks really interested, he is practically leaking nice all over the floor.

"You called it a sweat shop," I fire back. I want him angry, like me. I own angry Freddie.

"Well, it was a sweat shop, but you ran it like a machine. A child abusing machine, but a machine," he says.

"Child abuse? You think I'd abuse children?" I'm squeezing my palms so hard they have to be bleeding.

He looks surprised, "I was just joking around Sam, you're great with kids."

Carly speaks with this really panicked look on her face, "Sam volunteers at a shelter for abused children."

Freddie looks at me with an almost lunatic grin, "That's wonderful, I can't imagine what that's like,"

"That's right, you can't," I spit. "You nev…"

Spencer cuts me off and his face is like begging me to shut-up. "And she's getting ready to graduate."

"Wow, congratulations," Freddie says.

"Didn't think I could do it?"

Freddie smiles at me, "I always thought you could do it."

_You always believed in me. _

The room is wound tight and Carly says, "We've got reservations at Shade in an hour. It's a nice restaurant, so you two need to change," she points at Freddie and Gibby.

"Well, It's been an hour, I need fresh underwear anyway," Charming Freddie says and everyone except me laughs.

Gibby and Fredswine go across the hall to the Benson apartment. As soon as the door closes Carly is in my face. "What was that just now? I can't do a whole night of this!"

"I didn't ask him back here, you did! You set me up!"

Carly smiles, "Yes I did, with perfect bait that I knew you couldn't resist," she is glowing with satisfaction.

"I can resist Freddenstein no prob."

"I was referring to the restaurant, you didn't know about Freddie when I asked you to go to dinner," she says it with a whole bunch of "Gotcha."

"I'm not sure I'm going," I say.

It's like I didn't even speak, "He looks great, don't you think?" She adds. "Did you see those arms? That vein? I wonder if he has any tattoos."

"Probably, 'I heart Galaxy Wars.'"

"Sam, if you won't talk to him can you just be nice? Please?"

"I didn't see anything worth talking to. Why did you ask him back here?"

"Why? Sam, I've watched you work so hard, but you're so sad. You sleep here, go to work, to school, you don't date, you just eat, work and sleep."

"Yeah, it took a while to get used to you working," Spencer says.

We both give him the "stink eye."

"Guess I'll go change," Spencer makes a thumb point to his room. He's already dressed for the restaurant but he leaves us in the living room.

When he's gone I say, "You know Carls, it wasn't that great a relationship."

If I had just cracked open my own skull and pulled out my brain she could not have made a stranger face.

"What? We fought a lot." Carly has started cleaning up, picking up our glasses.

"You were perfect. You were adorable." She walks the glasses to the dishwasher.

_We were happy._

"You know, maybe you shouldn't go to the restaurant," she says.

"What! You can't stop me; I wouldn't miss it for anything."

"Ahhh! You are impossible! Aren't you even curious about him? At one point you expected him to come back, well he's back now." She puts the special lemonade in the refrigerator.

"He's a nub, scratch off the new muscles, and he's just the dishrag geek wearing a janky earring."

"Did you look at that earring?"

"It doesn't go with anything I own."

She sighed, "Sam, his earring is a little silver ham."

_!_

I hate him.

**A/N Let me know what worked and what doesn't if you get the time. I've got chapters five and six underway.**


	5. Fate's Little Helper

**A/N Thanks to all the reviewers who have commented:**

**Lovesux93, LithiumReaper, messy heart, Julefor, Darsnider, mizkntuhke, Moviepal, Bethsands35, irishflyer, , cream tea anyone, jhuikmn08, afanofanfic, Random Storygirl and coiwy1.**

**and a special thanks for everyone that has waited while I messed around on other projects. I'm gonna try to wind this up. If anyone suffered in any way while this languished I would be really, really surprised.**

**I do a lot of tell and very little show in this chapter. I know that it's wrong as a writer, so kids, don't try this at home. Show, not tell, when writing.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. I own my mistakes.**

**Chapter Five: Fate's Little Helper**

**Carly's POV**

OMG! Tonight is like a nightmare and I can't wake up. Nothing is happening the way I planned. I got Freddie to come back, he was supposed to run to meet Sam in slow motion, they would hug, realize all the time they wasted and get married, have babies and I would be the favorite aunt. Why am I the only one who sees that?

I had a great idea, the best intentions. Bring Freddie back, put him and Sam in the same space and let nature take its course. That always works, except when it doesn't. Sam and Freddie belong together. I know Sam missed Freddie, I was sure Freddie missed Sam. I know I'm right, doggone it! This should have worked! Why are Sam and Freddie so difficult to help?

Our initial get together tonight was horrendous. Freddie is being so nice, it's like all those exercises he's done have bulked-up his niceness muscles too, he won't take Sam's bait, if she set his pants on fire I think he'd offer to let us roast s'mores. Sam is the most intolerable I've ever seen her and with Sam there's lots of contenders for best bad behavior, worst bad behavior?—whatever-Sam is no day at the beach. I need to apologize for her, the things she said, wanting a truck to hit Freddie. She has not been right since she broke up with him. Oh, the wacky behavior I've seen. I'll get to that in a minute.

When I told Sam that that knock on the door was Freddie Benson coming back, I thought she'd be surprised, scared, maybe angry, but not crazy. She covered the distance from the kitchen to the door in maybe four steps, knocking Spencer down on the way. I was insane enough to think she wanted to hug and kiss Freddie hello. I never expected her to knock him out.

Tonight wasn't all bad, seeing Gibby and Freddie, doing the singing, talking, that was fun. I've missed them both so much. They really seem to have bonded. That's good I think. Still, Sam just sitting there smoldering, jabbing at Freddie was tough.

Is bringing them together the biggest mistake I've ever made? Although I can't think of any really big mistakes I've made, so this doesn't have a lot of competition. That sounds more stuck-up than I intend. Spencer says I meddle, but flowers don't grow on their own if you don't tend to them, water them, move them around to get the sun. I've read that, I've never actually gardened. Anyway, I just do what needs to be done when it doesn't seem like Fate is getting the job done.

I've been over this a thousand times, how this giant pile of steamy chiz landed. Not tonight's fiasco, but the whole story of Sam and Freddie. Our lives were great for years-like a TV show. We've known each other forever, since we were kids. We had one of the most popular web shows in the world for Pete's sake! For years Freddie had this monster crush on me. I thought he was a cute little boy and we grew to be friends, really good friends, but nothing more. Not on my end, and really, not on his either I don't think. We dated for a few days after this one time he saved my life but it didn't work for him and he called it off. I'd have kept going for a while longer, he's a pretty good kisser, but I don't think having me as a girlfriend was as attractive as the _idea_ of having me as a girlfriend. Does that make sense? I was okay with going back to just friends, boyfriends I can get anytime, but just plain friends are special. Hmmm, that sounds wrong. Well, you know what I mean.

Anyway, at no time back then did I think Sam and Freddie would hook up. They fought all the time. The fighting was sometimes amusing, often irritating but always there. Now that I'm older I get it. When you are fighting with someone like that you are feeling deeply about something. Lots of people saw it when we didn't. Sam and Freddie were like an old married couple without the old and the married parts. They have a need for each other that is the strongest thing I've ever seen in nature. They were like the beach and the tide. Moving back and forth, sometimes doing damage, but always sort of joined.

Sam I think was always attracted to Freddie in some deep part of herself. Freddie just thought she hated him and worked to endure her insults, attacks and tricks. He was just as surprised as I was by Sam's affection when she sprang it on him but he came around super fast. He figured out that his intense feelings for her went past the friends rating.

The night of the lock-in everything changed. Freddie's MoodFace App, the one that got the attention of the Pear Corporation, recognized that Sam was in love. Freddie and I thought it was with our new intern, and I tried to help get them together because that's what I do—I make stuff happen that won't happen on its own—I help. Freddie tried getting Sam to talk about it and Sam just grabbed Freddie and kissed him. I watched the whole thing from inside the building because I thought he might need help and I can't help if I'm not well informed. I think Freddie was just as surprised as me. No, I know he was,

Turned out even Sam was surprised by her feelings. She actually checked herself into a mental facility (and that might be the most insulting thing she ever did to him). But Freddie went after her and with my help getting the _iCarly_ audience to convince them it was cool to date, the two of them started something that day, a whole new chapter in our lives. I remember holding the camera when they kissed on _iCarly, _feeling so good that I put them together and wondering where it was headed.

In the beginning, Sam and Freddie made even less sense than Carly and Freddie, the two of them fought all the time about anything and everything. I was actually used by them as a kind of referee, explaining about compromise and giving ground to meet in the middle. I'd watch them fight, break-up, make up (those two LOVE to make up—or they did before tonight) but eventually they built a relationship like nothing anyone has ever seen. They really were good together. They had a passion, a fire that you only see in books and movies. I always pictured it in magazine covers. "It's Love!" with a photo of Freddie and Sam captured walking hand in hand. Sure they fought, but once it was clear to everybody how they really felt the fighting was cute. They would argue just to have a reason to talk and touch. They fit together somehow, each filling in the gaps in the other, a kind of balance. Sam gave Freddie a fire that propelled him. Freddie cooled Sam's fire, let her unwind and let her guard down. They gave each other a place to be, someplace safe where they could be a nerd or a b. and it was okay, because there was love that embraced the other totally. They weren't really opposites like some people think. They were very much the same kind of person from different homes.

Sam is pretty broken when it comes to relationships. She doesn't have a lot of friends because of how fearsome she can be, so getting with a guy is super complicated for her. I mean, it's a hill climb for anyone, but with Sam it's mountain climbing. Her dad abandoned her, her sister and their mom and I think that makes it really rough for any boy or man to get close to her. She pushes back because she's ready for anybody she cares about to leave. She's had only a few boyfriends, Jonah (a dirthead who tried to kiss me), Pete (Funny, I don't know what happened to him, but Sam was definitely trying to be something she wasn't with him). Only Freddie seemed to work. She was totally herself with him and he stayed. He even seemed to like it, to be challenged by it. But he did work hard at it. I'm kind of jealous about how much he cared for her, not in a I-want-him-way, but just that devotion. He dug into her and did so much for her. He got her into college (where she met Professor Ryan—but I'll get to him). Everybody should have someone like Freddie in their lives—someone who sees you on good days and bad and never lets go.

I've never had that.

God! Why did she dump him!

That's a question I still can't fully answer, but here's what happened.

Sam and Freddie dated, eventually without a referee, broke-up, got together, became a relationship that worked because they worked at it. We all graduated from high school, Freddie and I got into college, well actually Freddie became a Pear Scholar. The Pear Scholar initiative is this super prestigious program that sends successful applicants to different schools around the world in order to become a Pear Power Genius (that sounds so stupid, but that's what they call it. Sam would call him a Pear Power Ranger and off they would go on another battle. Sam told me that the making up was always great and it would be sweet to hear her talk about it. I never had to stop her from getting icky, in fact Freddie can, well that's TMI). Anyway, we stopped doing _iCarly_ regularly because it was too hard with our schedules. Eventually, over a break we put the show to bed with a big farewell special.

I really miss doing the show. At the time it was a lot of work. Looking back it was really special and I should have treasured it more.

Something about Freddie's academic success motivated Sam who got tired of working customer service (Sam in customer service!) collections, waiting tables and with Freddie pulling some Pear scholar strings got her started late with business, theater and weirdly, psych courses here in Seattle. She got along real well because I think she wanted to prove something to Freddie. For awhile it was good. It was a time of change for all us, but especially Sam. She was trying to figure out who she wanted to be, HOW she wanted to be. I can't explain it better.

Trouble started because Freddie was gone a lot, and the separation was hard. He saw it as a way of building for some kind of life, one that he and Sam were in together (no, I don't know more than that—it's just something I felt in my tummy). Sam went to some strange places. The changes we were going through tripped some things in her none of us saw coming. She was sure that Freddie was going to call her, tell her he had met someone she called the Pink Ranger and thanks for playing the game. You and I know Freddie wouldn't do that.

She was really vulnerable when she got into James Ryan's Psychology of Food class. I knew something was different when she started talking about him all the time, working on special projects and then being his Teaching Assistant. She brought him around and at first I thought it was cool to be hanging out with your professor. He certainly knew how to fit in. He didn't seem like those old guys who don't want to die so they mix it up with young people.

It was slow, over months. If Freddie had been around more I don't think Doctor Evil could have seduced Sam. And that's what it was, seduction. Professor Ryan filled in gaps none of us knew she had, or could do anything about really. He made her feel confident in school; he made her feel special where she felt common or worse. He treated Sam like family, good family, not Puckett family. He became what we were when we were doing the show and in school together. I never told Sam this, but I think there is something in her that really wants to make an older man love her. Not in a hotsy way, but in a daddy-please-hold-me way. Bring up Sam's father and you tap into a pocket of deep feelings that bursts out of her like hot grease.

Professor Ryan was able to turn Sam against Freddie by being the daddy she never had and he literally used a carrot and lots of other tasty treats. Yes, he did it partly with food. That might sound weird, but Sam has always had a thing for food and Professor Ryan could cook like Shelby Marx can fight or Ricky Flame can…cook. He had mad cooking skills. He fixed meals for her and sometimes us that were just supernatural. I would watch him cooking food in his kitchen goofing around making a kind of dance out of dicing onions or seasoning a broth and letting us taste something and suggesting something to add and I was charmed by it. I'm still charmed just remembering it. Most people never get past pizza and drive thru tacos. Everything he put on a plate was equal to Galini's pies. He could do things with just carrots that made you want to stand and applaud and Sam had more…profound reactions. The effect on Sam was incredible to see. I actually heard him use the phrase, "Food, little girl?" and Sam almost curled up in his lap! I once lured her someplace with the promise of bacon flavored ice cream, so when James Ryan delivered award winning food you almost heard old doors closing and new ones opening. I liked him okay at the start and I took home leftovers and returned his Tupperware, which was one of his ways of getting back in contact with women. He called me about his Tupperware and two hours later I was telling him what I wanted in a man and what went wrong in my relationships. Smooth.

He was okay looking but what he did was make you think he was interested in and cared about you. Show me any girl that doesn't turn gooey when a man listens and makes her laugh. He was super charming. When he walked into a room he could just own any female attention. I can't explain it, but I saw it enough to know. Spencer saw it too.

Freddie wasn't around and the one time I should have meddled to get him to come back I didn't. That's why I always help now. Terrible things happen if I don't. Eventually Sam made the choice to break up with Freddie and go with James Ryan.

She told me about it because she knew how big a step this was. I didn't handle it well, I mean, the worst Sam and I ever fought before that was when she quit _iCarly_ and the two of us almost fell off that window washer thingy. This was worse. I was watching my best friend dump my other best friend, and end the best thing that either of them ever had.

Sam really, truly believed she was moving on to a better relationship. I don't know how except that her new lover was like one of those guys who can make a room full of people drink poisoned Kool-Aid. Sam and I patched it up and I agreed to meet him again, give him a chance (not easy to do when you have watched the guy that saved your life sit in silence with tears streaming down his red face) and Sam, Spencer, Ryan and I tried hanging out together, but he was no Freddie. Something smelled icky.

Am I the only person who remembers how bad it was when Sam and Freddie broke up? The magazine covers in my head read, "On the Rocks!" in bright letters, "Sam dumps Freddie for older man!" Freddie showed up pounding on my dorm door crying and crying. I was so mad at her that she and I didn't speak for months. Finally we patched it up, but that was after Freddie moved away and what we three had as friends was changed.

I think Sam missed Freddie pretty quickly, before he even left town. It was that thing about not knowing what you've got until it's gone. She tried to be friends with him and Freddie couldn't be rude if you paid him, but he didn't want to be just friends. He couldn't go back to being friends. He wanted Seddie (that's what the _iCarly_ Fans called it) or nothing.

So Freddie continued on in the Pear Scholar program, continued to travel, moved south because he couldn't be around Sam, got a job at Pear and started a career I guess. He and I stayed in touch while Sam and Professor Ryan continued on doing what they were doing, but Spencer and I got more and more suspicious of him. Sam did not seem happy; she seemed different, really different. Talking with her she told me James Ryan used food and alcohol, and sometimes I think some kinds of drugs. Sam has never done drugs but she told me about some times they were together and he got her to lower all her inhibitions. Spencer has always kind of regarded Sam as the little sister he never wanted, so he went so far as to have Socko dig into James Ryan's background. What he found bothered both of us. Never married, moved around a lot, some charges filed and dropped. The kind of guy that marks off little girl figures on his wall. We found out he had a LOT of girl figures scratched off. Sam couldn't hear it though. Not at first.

It took awhile but Sam grew less thrilled with Fossil Papa's cooking and life lectures. He was good in a crowd but one on one Sam said he became pretty boring. She described him as a guy with a limited set of sketches for his web show. He had a hard time coming up with new material. He could only be a teacher, he couldn't be a friend, an equal. Finding out he was diddling other female students sped up the end. Eventually she walked away (I was so proud of her).

Walking away wasn't easy, leaving the guy that talked you out of the best relationship of your life, because you found out he was a lying chizbag? That's just messed up. She was pretty wrecked. Spencer said she slept on our sofa and would hide that she was crying (Sam only cries with me). I thought Spencer was going to kill James Ryan at one point. She didn't try to get Freddie back outright, she had some pride, but I think she hoped that he would hear about the break-up, and call, try to start over. That he would come after her like he did the night of the lock-in, or like he did at the hospital. _I_ told him that she wasn't with the Creeper anymore, but he never reached out. Mr. Do the Right Thing did nothing. That was a huge blow. In the past he came after her, put up with her bad behavior, but not this time. It was like she crossed a line. I couldn't blame him, not at first anyway. Sam found out just how big a shadow "The Nub" cast in her heart. The only person surprised was Sam, the rest of us already knew.

Freddie and I were still friends, we talked, video chatted, but he never asked about Sam, never talked about his personal life except for Marissa's signing him up for some kind of home inspection service, and I know more about the creation of Happy Dolphins than anybody should have to know. He really is a nerd. Without Sam, it was like he was incomplete, a brain with no heart.

Sam wanted Freddie to come back. I mean, you haven't seen her this last year, she was like someone missing a limb or a sense who couldn't compensate, she was out of balance. But no matter how many things I tried she wouldn't just reach out to Freddie and talk to him. Where was the girl that kissed him during the lock-in? Something about her time with Professor James Ryan broke some of her Sam-ness. It is awful to watch someone you love limp when you remember how they used to run.

Then one night Sam showed up crying saying that she found out that Freddie had turned into some kind of party boy, with all kinds of women. It didn't sound like Freddie to me, but like I said, he stopped talking about his personal life. Maybe he got kind of skanky on the side. Whatever the truth was, Sam went into a kind of walking coma. For a while she didn't even care about food. I think she thought he had become like her mom. If you know Sam at all you know how she should act, and the girl I was hanging out with was not her (think about it, Sam crying at my door?). Slowly, over time she has crawled out of a deep hole. I can't tell you how hard it was to sit there with her on Friday nights in the room where we shot the show, not talking about Freddie, not talking about what was eating her alive. But that's what friends do.

So, when Freddie called to tell me women were causing him all kinds of grief I gave him both barrels (what does that mean, anyway?). It wasn't really fair of me, but Sam has struggled so hard, I just demanded that he set things right.

The thing is, what does "set things right" mean? I just thought when they saw each other they would run together, he'd, I dunno, propose, and there'd be flowers made of ice cream and rainbows and sky rockets. They'd be the tide and the beach again. Spencer says I go overboard on my expectations.

I wish Stuart were here. He's not crazy about Sam but he might help keep me from chewing my lip off. In fact, that he dislikes Sam makes me wonder how long we can last. She is my best friend.

I feel like crying.

I want to take a shower, a really long shower.

Section II

Gibby's POV:

We are over at the Benson apartment. The only changes I notice are new plastic covers on the furniture and some kind of air cleaning unit humming in the corner of every room. Fred's digging in his bags, hanging up his clothes. I'm staying in the guest room which is not my idea of a party. Mrs. Benson has everything covered in plastic and I keep sliding off the bed.

"We aren't really going to this dinner are we?" I say to Fred.

"Uhm, yeah, why wouldn't we?"

"Oh, I dunno, maybe because she is going to kill you before the night is over."

Fred shrugs, and rubs his bruised face, "I'll admit I didn't plan on her hitting me, but thinking back I should have had a contingency plan."

"Who would have that kind of contingency plan? She's a head case!"

"She's not a head case, Gib."

Fred picks out a nice shirt, some kind of silky, shiny artificial fabric. It's deep purple. He matches that with black dress slacks.

"Dude, she wronged you. She should be on her knees, begging you for forgiveness."

He looks at me, his lips real thinned out, "On her knees? Gib, I…"

"No, she dumps you and when you make a friendly visit she pounds you? She's mental!" I screw my index finger into the side of my head.

He makes a face to acknowledge my point, "Like I said, I hadn't planned on her hitting me. I figured she'd be mad, but nothing like we saw tonight."

"Why did we come back?"

"I wanted to set things right. Part of me really wants her back, but after tonight I think I see that it would be too hard. I'm not going back to being a punching bag."

"Look, Fred, I'm gonna ask again, why are we here?

"So I can set things straight."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"Well…"

"Sam has a head full of bad wiring. What do you think you can do with her?"

I look away from him because I think he might be ready to cry. I know how much he loves Sam, but he deserves better than he gets from her.

"If I'm gonna be with Ashley or any woman, I need to settle this thing. I need to let Sam Puckett go. I tell you there are so many times when I think she and I are destined to be a couple, that we are forever—like when we die we are going to do this all over again until we get it right. Does that sound nuts?

I shake my head, "The dead part, kinda, but no, I think most people want that, that connection with someone that fills the gaps inside." I lace the fingers of both my hands together so no light comes through.

"Wow, that's pretty poetic."

"I don't get all those women with my good looks alone dude. But I don't think most of us get that relationship. I think most of us do the best we can and we settle."

He nods. "Anyway, I can't wait my whole life for the pieces to come together. I'm going to talk with her if she'll let me. Tell her she was stupid for dumping me and to have a good life. I'm going to apologize for..

"Apologize!"

"Sure, I became this guy that she could depend on. I took whatever beatings she handed out. Then, when it counted most I folded."

"That's how you see it?"

"That's how it is."

He is either the greatest guy on the planet or has his own head full of bad wires.

"I need to find a women who'll love me, nerd and all and stop living for a girl who hates me, or acts like she does."

When he says it, I don't feel like I won, I feel like I did when mom told me there was no Santa Claus. Maybe I wanted to believe there is someone special out there for us. I sure don't feel good.

"Y'know what I should do?" Fred asks.

I shake my head.

"I should call Melanie Puckett."

I blink at him.

"Dude, you should see your face," he says.

I nod at him, he's joking. Then I smile, "you got a mean streak in you Benson."

"You can't be in a couple with Sam Puckett without learning how to be mean."

We look at each other and let that sink in.

He looks a little embarrassed, "What I meant was…"

"No, I know what you meant. Listen, I don't wanna go all Broke Back on you again, but I know how you feel about Sam. You tell me what you need from me and I'm there."

"Thanks Gib. I'm not sure, but I think it's time to put a stake in this monster and go find my life."

"You really going to call her sister?"

He shakes his head, "No, that was just a bad joke."

I nod some more, and I don't tell him, but I feel like someone just killed the last unicorn.

**A/N**

**There 'tis. Drop a note if you've made it this far.**

**I'm not a big fan of writing something and then offering an apology. The work must stand or fall on its own merit. Having said that I offer the following: When I make a do-over for myself on this one, chapter five will be a series of Carly viewed scenes showing the break-up, the seduction, the despair, as opposed to what you have just read. The reason this one doesn't have that structure is because I'm just not that bright. I couldn't see it until just this morning. Not publishing today seems undisciplined to me.**

**I see two, maybe three chapters to conclude this. Chapter six should be up next Sunday. Be here for "Rumble in the Shade."**


	6. Scenes from a Seduction

**A/N Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter 5:**

**Urias, coiwy1, Segala, bluejay63, dancedivaqt247, Julefor, Bethsands35, irishflyer, afanofanfic,** **mizkntuhk,** **jhuikmn08, and Movie Pal**

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled. Special thanks to jhuikmn08 and Julefor for insight, reaction and feedback.**

**This isn't "Rumble in the Shade" that is next week. This is a companion piece for chapter five. Chapter five fell short for me but the proper format for what I wanted to do didn't surface in my writing mind until after a week's worth of working on chapter five and my Sunday publication deadline was at hand. As a writer the material that follows is much more satisfying to me and I think seasons the story in a very effective manner. I can't say how readers will receive it. That's your job.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns **_**iCarly**_**, and I love what he has done with the last few episodes. **

**Chapter Six: Scenes from a Seduction**

**Pre-Apuckettlypse Scene I: James Ryan's Office **

Professor James Ryan may be the nicest guy since Freddie. He reminds me of my high school principal, Ted. Since that first Psychology of Food class he has taken me in. He is so kind and wise. I feel like I could tell him anything. I mean, there are things I won't tell Fredstone 'cause I know how he'll react, but Professor Jimmy R., it's like I can go to him with anything and he listens and he never judges me. Everybody judges me, other teachers, Carly, but not him. He's got it all. He's a great teacher, lecturing in a way where you come out thinking you are smarter, more prepared to live. I've never felt so involved in school. I wish he could teach every class. That doof teaching English Comp should take notes.

We're sitting in his office. A lot of times I'll just stop by and hang out but today I need to talk, "I'm having a problem with Dr. Wearman," I tell him.

He smiles, his face is so welcoming, only Freddie's smiles have meant anything to me before. I'd never tell him this, but Freddie's smiles change how I think some days.

"Most students have a problem with Warren. He hides behind…" he gestures toward the door, "Why don't you shut that."

I look at him. His rule is he will not sit in the office with females when the door is closed.

"You'll have to trust me Samantha," When he calls me Samantha I feel warm, protected. Right, like he could hurt me, anyway. He started out calling me Ms. Puckett but we've come a long way in a short time. I push the door shut.

"Samantha, you are naturally bright and I know you have a strong personal code, you don't rat out informants."

I smile back at him. He's trusting me. So many people don't, there is no way I'll let him down, "You got that right professor," I say, feeling thrilled with his confidence.

"When the door is closed you can call me James," he says it with a wink.

"Okay, James," I like how that sounds on my tongue. Jimmy, Jim, Jamesifer, the Jamer.

He leans forward like he's going to tell me where the treasure is buried, "What I'm going to impart is a basic lesson I only share with persons I think will hear it."

He waits, watching my reaction. Then he says, "Everyone, you, me, ALL people have triggers, weaknesses, ways they can be manipulated to one's advantage. Now, only a serious monster would ever leverage that in an unhealthy way, but I think you have the moral code to do the right thing."

Man, he has no clue who he is talking to, but we've talked about my life in detail. Maybe he sees…past that? He tells me about Dr. Warren Wearman, how lots of students have trouble with his teaching, and he gives me some key tips on how to deflect Dr. Wearman and survive his ridiculously hard intro to counseling class. I mean, it's an INTRO class.

He concludes his lecture, and it's a good one because I feel smarter than when I walked in, then he invites me to see a documentary on human behavior at the student union tonight.

"I can't James, I'm going to video chat with Freddie."

"Say no more, the better offer wins. Where is Frederick tonight?"

"It's Fredward, and he's in Las Vegas for a conference."

"His parents named him Fredward?"

I laugh—"Yep."

"Well, my parents gave me three names that can be first or last, James Alexander Ryan. So who am I to talk?"

He shows me to the door, which in his tiny office is silly in a really charming way. "If your plans change, text me so I can get you in," he says.

"I will, and thanks," I do something I never do, I extend my hand to shake. He takes my right hand in his and covers both with his left; he shakes my hand with this easy strength. He doesn't try to bust my hand like some guys. So kind-sweet. Man, he's like Fredifer only more experienced, wiser.

"Samantha, you are welcome. You deserve every good thing," he smiles that smile again and I think of honey and butter melting on fresh biscuits.

I'm hungry so I hurry over to the trough to get something to take the edge off. I want to tell Freddie about today, about class, I miss Freddie so much, I actually feel it in my chest some days. The Pear Scholar program takes him away and gets me into a good school for no money down; I just give them my boyfriend. Heckuvadeal. My phone is gonging.

Frediluppe just texted me to say he can't do our video chat tonight. He's gonna actually meet Scarlett Johansson and Katy Perry at some party that Pear is hosting. I imagine Perry hanging on him. He loves brunettes, always has. It's crazy, but my jaw hurts I'm biting so hard.

Hey, James said to text him if my plans changed…

**Pre Apuckettlypse Scene II: Party at Casa del Ryan **

Professor James Ryan is dancing behind the granite counter in his kitchen; he's chopping so fast I'm sure there are going to be fingers in the onions. He's got good moves, I can't deny that, but I've seen them before, the music he's dancing to is hip, ("1.20.09" by Small Change Romeos) more hip than me, I'm old, but not as old as him. Where have I seen his moves? He's good looking in a way that guys notice about other guys. He has no trouble getting some.

Sam is dancing with him behind the counter helping prepare our dinner. I've seen her eat PLENTY, but cook? This is new. A lot of things feel new tonight. Sam can dance too and her moves are her own. It's like she's on _iCarly_. She's ON. Laughing, funny voices, smiling. Freddie is one lucky guy. Neither of us thought that when she was sitting on his chest choking him.

Sam invited me and Carly here to Professor Ryan's house. It's a really nice place in an Architectural Digest way. It is perfectly, tastefully decorated. The sink in his bathroom is a brass basin and the water flows out of copper tubes that look like ant antenna. I have to be real careful not to start any fires because he has some great art judiciously placed all around the house. He's got a Chihuly as a centerpiece on the dining table. College teachers don't pull down this kind of bacon, so I'm suspicious. I'm suspicious about a lot I'm seeing here.

"So, Spencer, how long have you known Samantha?" he asks.

"Who?" I ask him while I glance over at Carly who returns the look.

"Sorry, I can't get used to calling her Sam," he says as he continues seasoning, dicing and cooking. Guy has got some moves but something is just—off.

"Oh, she and Carly and Freddie grew up together," I'm sure to mention Freddie every chance I get. Sam lets him call her, "Samantha?" I see no contusions on him.

"Keeping friendships for so long" (twirl to grab some purple berries dripping wet in a basket) "is really heartwarming, society in century 21 really has compressed human connection."

"I agree professor," I think I agree, I'm kind of intimidated. It's like sitting in a room with a giant, pulsing brain. Century 21? Who talks like that?

"Call me James, please. Try these, picked them myself in the backyard." He sets a bowl down between me and Carly.

"Carly, taste this please, what do you think?" he hands her a forkful of deep green leafy something.

"Uhm, I'm not much of a cook," she says.

"Neither am I, but Samantha told me about your web show and I went out to YouView—very impressive. You do lots of things with food on the show, you appreciate its power, that's clear. By the way, that Gibby fellow, I love him." With this guy, I'd expect him to say he wants to do a research paper on Gibby but he doesn't. He moves through a conversation like he's sailing a boat.

Carly takes the forkful and chews it thoughtfully, "Maybe some lemon?"

He stops his dancing and stares at her, "For someone who is 'not much of a cook' you are very food aware. Brava. Lemon the lady says, lemon it is." Carly dissolves slightly into her blush.

"Spencer, I've checked out your work. That piece you have at Roq La Rue, it's very moving. It is simultaneously amusing but making a statement about waste in America. Seems if you cut a Shay they bleed creativity."

Whoa, for a few seconds I'm eating it with a spoon. He knows my stuff? This guy did his homework.

As the music suddenly changes he holds up his hand, finger pointed at the ceiling, "guitar breakdown!" he says and he and Sam do their own version of Random Dancing. He has his hands in the air clapping, looking down at his own butt like a Flamenco dancer. Sam is circling him backwards. Have they rehearsed this? Freddie and Sam never danced like this, mainly because Freddie dances like a guy falling down a flight of stairs.

I'm watching Sam. She is happy, but different than I remember her being in any gathering ever. She has her eyes on Professor James Ryan the whole time. If Freddie were here she would be different than this. Freddie is missing from this room in more ways than one.

**Pre Apuckettlypse Scene III: Computer in Shay Kitchen**

"Freddie, when are you coming home?" she is very close to yelling at the screen.

His image comes back but is somewhat pixilated, rainbow squares bursting out of his face like hi-tech acne. "Sam, I'm coming home early- before Christmas," he says. His words and lips are out of sync, the sound coming out after his lips have moved.

"But you won't be here **for** Christmas or New Years! That's jank Benson! What about our plans, we made plans to go the haunted B&B! You promised!"

"Sam, we can reschedule and do that, I just can't be home for the holidays. The other PP Scholars and I have an opportunity to prepare for this big presentation at Pear Planet. It's just this once."

At one time, the term "PP Scholars" would have been a reason for Sam to make fun of Freddie and they would go into one their playful arguments. Instead Sam asks, "Is Stacy going to be there?" James explained how the male mind works at the deepest levels. When males are away, their biology forces them to leave their seed in the nearest available repository. That would be Stacy. Stacy is a brunette. She has "DOING" although Freddie has never said it.

"Yes, the whole class is committing to this. No one is going home for the holidays. I can't back out."

Her voice lowers as she hears James urging her to channel her anger, "You could, but you won't, I judge actions not rhetoric," she can almost hear James Ryan saying, "Well played Samantha!"

She adds, "You haven't texted me once this week."

"Sam, I'm sorry, I'm working 18 hour days. I slept four hours and I don't know when I'll see the sheets again."

"Are you sleeping with Stacy?" her voice is calm as she asks. She sees James nodding, urging her on with a silent thumbs-up.

"What! No! Sam, she's in my class. What is going on?" The distorted face in the display rolls his eyes,

"Don't roll your eyes at me Benson, that's contempt!" James explained the meaning of expressions in specific situations.

"What? What are you saying? You're breaking up Sam."

"Breaking up? Did I hear you right?"

"Sam! I'm headed home in a few weeks!"

"Okay," she says, but James has explained that her deepest fears are not illusion, the things we fear are often reflections of the real world. If one fears that one's boyfriend is sleeping with someone else he probably is. Not because Sam feels unworthy of his love, but that HE believes she is.

**Pre Apuckettlypse Scene IV: In Ryan's Car Outside Sam's House **

"You didn't need to give me a ride home," she tells you.

"I don't like the thought of you out late here—just doesn't feel right."

"I've lived here my whole life."

"And you have quite a life ahead of you," you reply.

"I'm in Wearman's Careers in Psychology class this semester."

"I saw that, you seem to have him figured out."

"You showed me how," she aims electric blue eyes straight at you in the darkness.

"You are manipulating Warren Wearman?" you ask.

She shrinks slightly at the possibility of rebuke, "I'm using the tools you gave me."

"Be respectful of your power," you tell her gently.

"I will. I want you to be proud of me."

"I couldn't be prouder of you."

She is silent for a moment, then she says softly, "I want to thank you. You have done so much for me, more than anyone has ever done. I can't, like, pay you back."

"Pay it forward."

"What? You mean…

"You are young and opportunity is abundant. You will have lots of chances to reach out and help. That's the best thing you can do to thank me—remember how it felt to get a hand when you needed it and then help someone who needs it—give them that feeling."

Her smile beams at you, it is a face full of admiration, until now "Freddie Benson" some plebian heartthrob was the most remarkable male she had ever known, but he is just a boy, and you are so much more.

"You talk like you are some old man. You aren't. You're only 15 years older than me."

"When you say it, it doesn't sound so bad."

"It's not. Not to me anyway."

You smile, "You should head in. I'll walk you to the door."

"I'm fine, but thank you." She hesitates. The idea of inviting you in is shot down by the mental picture of you seeing the run-down place she lives in. Too embarrassing. Suddenly she leans across the seat and kisses you on the cheek. It is little girl's buss, quick and shy. She is out of the car before you can speak.

You sit in deep darkness watching the golden girl walk. You count on your fingers, one, two, three, four…

On four she turns and waves before going in the front door. Inside she watches from the window as you knew she would, while you wait looking back at her silhouette.

You smile. You have earned the trust of someone who has learned not to trust, someone who bears the scars of abandonment. You read somewhere that such trust is sacred. Her father's leaving and not coming back as he promised coupled with the mother's massively dysfunctional behavior has left Samantha Puckett in that sprawling demographic of wounded, vulnerable minds. She could be viewed as a hallway with multiple doors allowing entry.

Her turn to look, her watching out the window as you wait outside were predictable, but the kiss was a surprise, something you thought would be coming but is a little ahead of schedule. Well, manipulation is never an exact science you tell yourself. She isn't a puppet after all. The surprises add to the richness of your wonderful life.

Phase one is complete.

You are James Alexander Ryan, and the fact that your parents gave you three unspectacular names is a source of personal amusement. It is one of the few ordinary things that amuse you because you are not ordinary. There are lots of words that describe you:

Professor

Researcher

Teacher

Writer

Heir

Lecturer

Psychologist

Intellectual

Bon vivant

Certified Counselor

Amateur Dancer

PhD (ABD)

Tenure applicant

Award winner

Gourmet

Epicure

Hedonist

Sadist

Sociopath

You have successfully insinuated yourself into the mind and life of Samantha Puckett. You are with her regardless of your physical location, your ideas and words are germinating in almost every action and moment of her day.

Phase two is underway. You lick your lips as if some salty, savory taste was in your mouth. she is in turmoil over the affair she sees coming down the tracks. She is drawn to you but feels torn by her loyalty to her long term relationships. She is in far over her head and experience level. She is smart and strong but horribly overmatched. The foundation has been set and the framework of twisted ideas and misused truth is coming together to justify her actions. You map out the weeks ahead as she willingly comes to you; you visualize her resistance tumbling down. That steady collapse will presage the falling away of clothing, and inhibition and eventually all self-worth as you spread across her mind and flesh in a kind of rape that is not illegal but leaves behind an even more incalculable devastation. She will partner with you in her own subjugation. The best ones resist degradation and you persuade them over time, wear them down so they lose every trace of identity and self-esteem. This one has great spirit, bringing her down into doubt, face-to-face with her own emptiness will be sweet as a summer peach. You imagine its juice on your lips and running down your chin. You shiver in anticipation of intimately violating yet another female life.

You haven't lost count of how many times you have done this, and you have an extensive video collection of the milestone moments of debasement you have perpetrated on women upon whom you have perfected your methods of control.

Power and control, pushing the other person to actions and choices they cannot explain. Is there any more wonderful sensation? She will be like the many others before her. You see their faces in close-up, sweating, gasping, hurting, pleading as you urge them to explore new places and expand their perspectives. Each has her own threshold, places she will not go, and with serpentine grace you wind your way into their most private spaces, urging them into a writhing place of pleasure streaked with cries of pain and freezing fear. The confused, panicked eyes all stare at you as you shatter the trust in you they have come to rely on, to need. It is the tear-filled gaze of a beaten child that asks, "why daddy?"

Again you quiver and smile at the rush of memory. Finally you sigh; it is a deeply satisfied sound boiling up from a place of unspeakable shadow.

You don't feel things the way others do, but you cannot escape the conclusion that life really is a bowl of cherries—innocent hearts and bodies to be exploited and abused. You sit in your dark car on a moonless night, the blackness that surrounds you blending perfectly with the blackness spilling out of you.

She is still looking out the window. You wave and she waves back eagerly. Slowly you drive away down her impoverished street; the evening swallows you as you join the other monsters that wait in the dark.

**A/N This one feels better to me, although trying to get a bead on James Ryan's thought and motivations was troubling. Let me know **_**your**_** thoughts if you feel so inclined.**

**Next Sunday really will be "Rumble in the Shade."**


	7. Rumble in the Shade

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter 6:**

**Urias, Julefor, afanofanfic,** **Movie Pal, Random Storygirl, Sparrows Dragonfly, jhuikmn08, Mack, Mintydinosaur and mizkntuhke.**

**As is my practice, I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. Rob Schneider makes me laugh.**

* * *

><p>"<strong>Gimme some slap on this Fender!"<strong>

"**Awww stand back now!"**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven: Rumble in the Shade<strong>

Shade is very swanky, a restaurant where everything is about presentation, where food and performance and art blur together, the kind of place The Monster would take me, and I turn off those thoughts hard.

The chef/owner is pals with Fat Johnny although the two disagree a lot. Johnny likes big numbers, hey, he's called Fat Johnny, the guy likes everything big, his servings, his pant's size, you name it. The chef/owner of Shade is a quality over quantity guy. The place is good sized but there aren't many tables; the room smells like I want my funeral to smell-a preview of Sam's heaven. Sauces, spices, grilling meat, garlic butter, olive oil and this deadly hot pepper dip for the fresh baked bread.

Our waitress, Jenna, wearing black pants and a white shirt recognizes us from _iCarly_. This happens more than I'd like, Carly is Carly, she's sweet and talks to her about bits that Jenna liked. What gets me is how Freddie and Gibby are working it. Well, actually, Gibby is working it. Jenna started talking to Carly and me, but she drifted to Freddie real fast, because even with that eye he is pretty hot. Chizhead. Now Gibby is doing all the talking. Freddie is looking at me. He smiles. I look away. I'm getting my meal out of this and then I'm gone. I can do this. I've done lots tougher things than this. I survived James Ryan, I can do dinner with my ex.

My ex. That's all I've got: exes. I've got like, the worst record with guys. I've had one decent guy in my life, I mean, if anybody knows life isn't fair, I do, but still... I look at Freddie from the corner of my eyes. What a huge mistake I made there.

As soon as Jenna leaves to get our drinks, Gibby goes back to tapping on his Pear Phone. He's been hitting that thing all night.

"Hey Gib, what up with the phone?" I ask.

"Updating Splashpage. I've been texting out reviews of the plane ride, the weather. Everybody wants to know what Gibby is doing."

"Not everybody," I tell him.

"Everybody who matters," he says back.

He's still mad about the broken thumbs, and the drawing on his head, and the patch of hair I tore out of his scalp and not being invited to the Karma party, and…Well it's kind of a long list when I think about it.

How much longer will I have to sit here? I look over at Carly who is giving me little across the table nudges with her face.

What? I "face" back to her.

She does some kind of stressed look, but I know what she wants. She wants me to talk to Freddie, to be nice to the guy who didn't have the junk to face me after…

_I dumped him. I dumped him so I could date Satan. _

Spencer looks at the exchange between us.

"Let me translate," he says. "You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside."

Whatever, when did he become a therapist? Therapists are liars. The serpent king is a certified counselor…Okay, not thinking about the past anymore.

But I do think about it. Yeah, I effed up. I always ef up. I had it good but I wanted…What exactly? I don't even remember. I don't think I deserved what I got. Nobody deserves what I got. Story of my life: Born, dad leaves 'cause I'm too much trouble, mom stays, hates me for-not dying I guess-leads to a life of effed-up choices. Yeah, that about covers it.

Only people that care about me are at this table and I've worked them over tonight.

I really am just a blond haired piece of chiz.

There's a commotion at the entrance to the dining room. Three guys are scoping out the space, heads shaved, with tats and 'tudes. Brown skinned, Hispanic, pants low on their hips. They could be smuggling immigrants in those baggy clothes. They belong here like a cobra in a petting zoo.

They stroll into the dining room, ignoring the host chick who's trying to explain the reservations concept to them. One of the hairless dudes, the boss I'm guessing, looks like a border version of that noseless guy from those old wizard movies-Lord Baldimore, which makes his two bald buddies Death Eaters.

They strut to the center of the dining room, and they have everyone's attention. The room becomes a weird mix of dead silence and whispers. They make a big show of checking everything out. One of them grabs an appetizer plate off a table, another takes a bottle of Champagne out of an ice bucket, drinks it like a bus station wino then spits a foamy stream on the floor. Baldimore calls out:

"I'm looking for Gibby!" he has a Cheech accent but his voice buzzes because of the lack of nose.

I look over at Gibby who is staring at Lord Baldimore and the Death Eaters. His expression tells me he just peed in church. Something ugly is going on. For the first time tonight my head is clear. I feel my heart speed up and electricity jolt into my arms and legs. There is no doubt in my mind: I'm gonna get to hit something.

There is a worried chatter in the room. I don't take my eyes off of them. Then I hear Freddie say, "I'm Gibby."

! Apparently whatever crazy was in me earlier tonight jumped into Freddie. Out of the corner of my eye he looks really in control. It's a good look for him.

Lord Baldimore does a tough guy walk over to our table, all the metal on his belt making a spurs sound, and stops in front of Freddie, he is radiating badass as he says, "You're Gibson? You know who I am?"

Freddie, looking bored, shakes his head and then says, "The Hair Club for Men 'before' picture?"

I laugh, it's funny and it takes me by surprise. That's when it starts. Freddie looks over at me, he smiles, his real smile, it's not the smirk, it's the happy little boy smile that he gets at _Galaxy War_ conventions, the one that melts my heart. He winks at me again and for the first time tonight I smile at him. He sees that and his face goes blank like the night of our second kiss, his eyes doing that side to side thing they do. I feel that look deep inside, like a green, leafy orange tree just sprouted in the dessert. I hear a motor inside me starting to turn over. It hasn't run in a long time but it is jerking and jumping.

Noseless throws this gold fur thing on the table in front of Freddie, "You recognize that?"

Freddie shakes his head to get back in the game, then looks like he's thinking hard, he strokes his chin and looks up, "A beavcoon pelt?"

Spencer says, "Beavcoon pelts are brown."

Everyone, Baldimore, the Death Eaters, even this old couple at the nearest table, turn to look at him then back at Freddie.

"I got that from Patrice," Baldimore says.

"Wow, if you used wax that must have hurt," Freddie replies.

Baldimore squints at Freddie, "Patrice is my wife, _Cabron_, you been messin' with my property."

Freddie nods, thinking it over, "You own Patrice outright or are you making payments?" Freddie looks over at me like he's waiting for applause. Does he think this is a game? Doesn't he see how dangerous these guys are? Isn't he wondering how the guy lost most of his nose? Still, I don't care how many skanks Freddie got with he would never do it with a married woman. I know him.

_I know him better than anyone. _

I'm starting to get it. There is only one reason Freddie is pretending to be Gibby. He's protecting Gibby. The nub is letting these street thugs think he's the guy they are looking for. My brain says it's stupid, but the part of me that feels remembers how amazing Freddie is to be around. I don't know anyone else that would do this for a friend.

_He's doing what he thinks is the right thing._

"I'm gonna make the right side of your face match the other," Baldimore tells him.

Freddie looks up at him; he doesn't seem nervous or rattled, "By my count, there are three of you, and one of me, that doesn't seem fair."

Baldimore looks at his posse, grinning, then back at Freddie, "Life ain't fair _esse_. We gonna dance on your _cojones._"

"No, I meant you have to get some more guys," Freddie looks at me again like he wants me to hold up some kind of score card from the Olympics. WTF? Weirdly, I remember when he stood up to Crazy, his mom, that time he moved into the basement of Bushwell. As dangerous as this is, I'm feeling the same way I did that day. Proud, impressed, attracted.

Attracted to the nub—like I have been all night-like I have been in some way most of my life, when I let myself admit it.

What's worse is I feel like I did before the lock-in all those years ago. I want it; I want the crazy more than any food you can name. The motor is running inside me, kinda rough, sputtering, but running.

Some guy, maybe the manager, walks up to talk to Baldimore, who never takes his eyes off Freddie. He is looking to taste blood. This isn't going anywhere good.

_Freddie could die tonight._

I shiver.

I look over at Gibby and say, "I don't know what this is about but are you in?"

He nods, he doesn't look scared, but he doesn't look as batshit crazy confident as Freddie does either. He gets what is happening. What's going to happen. What might happen as a result. Freddie seems to be starring in and directing some _Galaxy Wars _fight scene.

_He could die tonight._

"Spencer, get Carly out of here," I tell him.

"We should call the police," she says.

"Cops have probably gotten that call," I answer.

"We're not leaving without you guys," Carly states.

"Carls, at the very least we're gonna need bail—you follow me?"

She goes even whiter than normal which really surprises me. Spencer puts his arm under hers and they rise up.

_I won't let him die tonight._

"Hey, Flat Face!" I say to Baldimore, and he turns toward me. "Your wife, all that stuff he did to her? I taught him how." The guy's face goes into a knot, which, with almost no nose, is really something to see.

Freddie's eyebrows shoot up, mister nice guy's cool flickers, and for a second he's that Nub I used to fight with, "Saaam!" he says with that whiny voice from my best memories. "That's not appropriate! Stay out of this."

"Don't tell me what to do, Fredward."

"I'm Gibby!" He stresses, his gravy brown eyes poking at me.

I roll mine, "Whatever, 'Gibby,' just don't tell me what to do."

Then he adds defensively, "For your information I taught myself all the things I did to Patrice."

I laugh, "You taught yourself? All alone in your room?"

Freddie realizes how that sounds, his cool is cracked, he can't decide what to say, he's slipping into that guy who has to stay behind the camera.

Baldimore is looking back and forth between us, like a tennis game.

"This is none of your business, Sam," Freddie says.

"I'm gonna have to bail you out of this, so you better believe it's my business," I shoot back.

"Bail me out? I don't need Sam Puckett to fly in on her broom and fix anything, I've got this!"

And. I've. Got. Him.

That tone in his voice, like a favorite song I haven't heard in years. He's Freddie again! This is delicious, sweet and salty. I've waited so long to taste this again, my mouth is actually watering.

He's mad at me. I got his attention just like I did when we were kids. I don't know why I need his attention but I surely do.

We are fighting. Sam and Freddie are fighting.

Yes! YES! YES!

Baldimore calls out, "Hey, hey, so you're cheating on your wife?" he says pointing at me.

Freddie gets a cold slap look on his face, "She's not my wife!"

Baldimore shakes his noseless head, "You only fight like this with your _Corazon_," and he makes a move thumping his fist to his chest, waving his arm, connecting me and Freddie with some invisible rope.

Freddie is sputtering, he's now totally the camera man who needs a script, "We're not… She's just, we used to, she, we, I mean, oh butter!" Seeing him like this I feel warm inside, like Carly described coming home. It's like when it was good, when we were together.

_Before I broke his heart._

I see Carly and Spencer's backs going out the door.

"Hey," Gibby announces to my left, "_I'm_ Gibby."

Baldimore looks over at him with a "yeah right" look on his face. "Yeah right," he says.

"Nah," I say, "I'm Gibby."

Baldimore looks at me then Gibby, "No way Patrice is with you, tubby," he turns to me, "but, when I'm done with your husband, I'll show you how it's done," and he gives his hips a little jerk.

"You aren't man enough," and it's in stereo. Freddie says it at the** same time **I do. We look at each other. I can't describe what I'm feeling. I'm happy, excited, not a trace of the rage I felt earlier tonight. I think we are about to die, but if I have to go tonight, I want to go with…him?

_Yes. With him! YES!_

Then I see a third Death Eater coming up behind Freddie. I never saw him come in, maybe he's waiting on a signal from Baldimore, but I'm not. I'm up, I've kicked my girly shoes off and I'm throwing my plate at the guy. "Freddie, behind you!" I shout, and Freddie pushes back from the table falling backwards. "Get under the table!" I order. Gibby is moving on my left heading toward the three. If any of these _chollos_ is packing we are dead.

And it's on.

People are screaming, running out of the room, tables over turning, hundreds of dollars of over-priced food is hitting the floor. Weirdly some folks are sitting, like they are watching a movie and can't be hurt if this goes too far south.

I have to take these guys out fast. I can't let anything happen to Freddie. When I reach new guy I go to the basics: even the biggest guy in the room has to stand on his legs. I get on his left and kick his knee in a direction it isn't built to move. The sound of bone breaking is like wood cracking, I've heard it a lot, it's familiar. So is the scream the guy makes as he goes down. I'm not looking at him, but I'm sure he's crying. This takes me maybe five seconds.

Gibby and the second Death Eater are at it. No knives or guns so far just fists. Gotta keep movin' can't let them pull metal. I grab the flask of deadly hot pepper sauce off a table and a fork.

The first Death Eater moves on me, he's confused, I'm a girl and small, I've seen it so many times I can't tell you. I'm gonna break one of his arms. Every second means Baldimore is alone with Freddie.

_I can't let anything happen to him. I can't leave it this way._

The guy I'm dancing with looks at me, squints, freezes, then says, "Hey, you're _iCarly_!"

I let him have the pepper sauce in the eyes. He makes a loud animal noise, says something in Spanish as I twist him down, get his right arm and break it against a table edge.

Hate to do that to a fan.

While the guy shrieks I move to help Gibby. Then we can both finish Baldimore. Even as I throw myself on the last Death Eater's back I'm cursing myself, this was a mistake. I should have moved to Baldimore next. I can't afford an ef-up, not tonight. But now I'm committed.

"Gibby, get to Freddie!" I shout. Blood is roaring in my ears.

From his back I ram the fork deep into the Death Eater's left arm pit. He shrieks like a girl. I snarl in his ear to let him know the fork was just the beginning of his pain. He starts thrashing around trying to smash me into the walls because I'm twisting the fork. This is taking too long.

"Gibby, get to Freddie!" I shout again. My voice has an animal sound. I've heard it bounce back at me in fights all my life.

I notice the blood dripping dagger tattoo on the Death Eater's scalp. My legs hook his hips and he loses his footing. I ride him to the carpet, ramming his face into the floor. The blood from his shattered nose sprays like a stepped-on ketchup packet. I give his head a pound into the floor and it makes a really loud hollow thump. I wrap my right arm around Death Eater's neck using my left to press his head sideways. Careful Puckett, this can kill. He lets out a choking sound and I squeeze harder, he tightens his neck muscles but he can't get any air. He's very blue and unconscious when I pull my arm lose. I look up to see Gibby just standing.

Gibby hasn't budged!

"AHHHH!" I scream at him, the adrenaline surging through me. My fingers are out like claws, I'm hunched down ready to launch at the next opponent.

He turns to me in slow motion. That idiot! The look on his face is a mix of fear and horror, Iike I'm coming for him next.

"Sam?" he says, eyes wide.

"What's wrong with you! Why aren't you helping Freddie?" my voice is low, I'm talking through my clenched teeth, spit flying off my lips.

He puts his hands out in a patting motion. He raises his eyebrow and says in an even, calm voice. "He'll be fine—trust me."

? !

I look around and spot Baldimore and Freddie. Baldimore does a perfect spin kick and Freddie-blocks it? Freddie's knees are bent, his center of gravity is controlled and he's in a fighting stance, he's weaving, almost dancing. No, I've seen him dance, or rather that seizure thing he does when he dances fast. This isn't it.

Like Gibby, I'm just watching. Freddie Benson is in a fighting stance. I have to say that to myself again, "Freddie Benson is in a fighting stance." Those words don't go together, like "Carly sure is fat," or me and "no thanks I'm full."

Baldimore is pretty good but he's trying too hard to land a knock-out blow and Freddie just keeps blocking and dodging. Baldimore is busting it, but Freddie isn't even breathing hard. I've been in enough fights to understand: Freddie is letting Baldimore exhaust himself.

Gibby and I stand there, the three broken Death Eaters are gathering together, the fight is out of them. They are looking at me with wide-eyed terror. One of them whispers "Diabla." The one with the busted nose is trying to get the fork out of his armpit. They want to beat it, but they won't leave Flat Face. I admire the loyalty. I make a jerking motion toward one and they all flinch back. Broke-nose cries out and the one whose arm I broke whimpers.

Wussies.

"I know you caused this," I tell Gibby.

"Yeah," he nods. "Listen, while I got ya, I kinda got to set something right."

While he's got me? Well Gibby hasn't changed. He's still living on his own planet of insane timing. He wants to talk, NOW?

Gibby looks really conflicted, like he can't decide between two prime cuts of meat. Okay, that's more me, but that's the look. He's shuffling side to side and he isn't facing me, kind of watching Freddie fight (Freddie Benson fighting, Bigfoot driving an RV-things you think you will never see).

"Y'know, when you called me that one time? I knew you were looking for Fred, and well, I, said some things… When I told you Fred was hookin' up, doing stuff… "

I'm looking at him. I want so much to hear him say…

"I lied."

_Iknewit, Iknewit, Iknewit Iknewit Iknewit Iknewit Iknewit!_

"Don't get wrong, Fred could do it, the man is being chased by his hot boss, for cripes sake, heck, he could have so many …" Gibby stops. "Look, Fred can tell you what he wants you to know, but I was out of line to say what I did."

"Why did you…" I start to ask.

"I did it 'cause I didn't want Fred getting clobbered by you anymore. What you did, dumping him—it was wrong. For years and years I watched you treat him so bad. If he wasn't gonna fight back, I would."

We watch Freddie and Baldimore fight. It's pretty clear, Baldimore has got some street moves, but Freddie is handing him his hat.

Finally I say, "You're a good friend, Gib." Then, it jumps out of my mouth from some place in my head and it surprises even me, "Does he ever talk about me?"

Gibby sort of nods, he isn't answering me, he's agreeing to something in his head, "Man, it's all about you! You know what? He doesn't talk about you," and my heart gets this frozen knot in it, every cheap, rotten voice in my brain is trying to outshout the other to say, "Told you, you're a worthless loser! Who could ever love you?" Then Gibby adds,

"Sam, he loves you. He has never, ever, for one second stopped loving you. You are always with him-every minute of the day, everywhere he goes. I know it, he knows it, women he dates know it… No, he doesn't' talk about you anymore than he talks about his arms or his hair or anything else that's a part of him."

_He loves me?_

I don't know what to say.

_He loves me._

It's like things are shifting back into place.

_He loves me._

I feel the last two years slide off my back.

_Because he loves me?_

The cold knot in my chest is gone as fast as it came, the voices are gone. I'm almost crying in front of Gibby. If I didn't hear Pam Puckett saying, "No tears!" remember the slaps that followed, I would.

Then he looks at me with the most serious face I've ever seen, "But Sam, what you did to him was wrong, he won't tell you that, but I will."

I nod. "I know Gib, I, I, know."

"He is a great guy, Sam."

I nod again.

"He deserved better. He deserved to be treated the way he always treated you."

Nod.

We watch Baldimore try to kick Fred, but he can't get his leg up anymore, this show is about over. Baldimore is soaked with sweat, his breathing is ragged. Gibby says to me, "Fred is going to give the guy a chance to quit, and he'll belt him real fast to show him he means business."

This has to be the craziest night of my life. Then sure enough, Freddie says,

"Give it up. You're out of shape, and I do this every day."

?

Freddie adds, "In a few minutes you won't be able to even lift your arms and you're going to get hurt," and just like Gibby said, Freddie's right arm (I can't see the vein but I know it's there) does this cork screw punch and just takes all the air out of Baldimore who flies back. It's so fast I almost doubt that it happened. Baldimore doesn't so much walk forward as stumble then sag to his knees.

Baldimore is gasping, choking, nodding, surrendering; he's our age, but not in shape. Freddie's right. A fight drains a lot of energy out of you. Baldimore is tough but he has no endurance. Freddie has always had great endurance, I remember one night…and my cheeks are flushing because of what I'm remembering. I'm remembering THAT now? I haven't felt like that, thought about that in so long. I'm so happy-this must be what if feels like to fly, to be a bird swooping over the city, touching the clouds with sunlight streaming everywhere I look. This is definitely how I'd describe coming home to Carly.

I'm losi_ng_ _my mind again and it feels wonderful. _

Noseless looks at the room, at his busted Death Eaters looking to run away. Then over at me and Gibby.

Freddie walks over and reaches his hand out to Baldimore to help him up. Baldimore looks at it then at Freddie, he doesn't get it at first, then he takes Freddie's hand and stands, he looks over at his crew, crippled and beaten. I can't make out the look on his noseless face, but I'm guessing he's having a strange night too.

"Hey, _Cabron_, who is that _diabla_?" I hear him ask nodding at me.

"My ex," Freddie says.

That hurts to hear, worse than any other bad thing in my memory. Sam and Freddie are over. What did I think, saving his life would fix everything I broke? Our friendship, his heart, our future.

"_Ai Dios_! Nobody fights like that for an ex. She's a still."

Baldimore looks at me up and down, slowly, like he's trying to set a price, then he turns to Freddie, "She's a forever."

And the police storm in, night sticks drawn, radios squawking.

I assume the position.

**A/N **

**If you made it this far let me know what you think.**

**About the episode: "iLove you" that aired last night. Hotwriterbabe26 sent me the following:**

"**Omg! I hate Dan Schneider! They have some differences and so they break up, THEN they say "I love you"? That is so jank! What does that mean? I don't get it. Like we talked, the last few shows were SO good, an funny and fresh.**

**You told me to keep the faith and not wurry about it, but I just can't. **

**And Nathan Kress look so HOT last night.**

**Can't you do something? I mean, you're like this amazing writer and he would have to respect it if you told all the stuff you thought about Seddie and writing and stuff.**

**Won't you try? Please. I know you like it when we tell you how handsome and strong and smart you are so put that here. **

**Please?"**

**What to do with such sentiment which I'm guessing lots of folks (minus the how amazing I am content) are feeling.**

**Well, I can tell you my reaction to the events in "iLove You."**

**I made up that whole letter above. Yep, I created fiction. Which is what FanFic always does. It takes things it likes and things it doesn't like and makes them into something else. You can't control what anybody else does folks, but you can control how you behave and you can choose to take the unfun materials and make them work for you.**

**My train travels on tracks that I lay down (although the cars on this railroad are owned by Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon). My advice? Keep reading FanFic you like, keep writing FanFic you like. Make your world someplace you like to be.**

**Next chapter is called "The Long Walk Home." I hope to have it done next Sunday but it's quite a beast. Wish me luck. As we say at work, "Expect delays."**


	8. NOT Chapter Eight of iApuckettlypse

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter 7:**

**afanofanfic, Julefor, Bethsands35, Movie Pal, Urias, Dwyn Arthur, jhuikmn08, irishfan62, indigowaves2, Mack, mizkntuhke, purple550 and coiwy1**

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled. **

**A special thanks to jhuikmn08 for the idea here.**

**Disclaimer: I own this, but if Dan Schneider (or anybody else) wants to write a WhiteKnightro story I'm cool with it. Hey, fair is fair.**

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><p><strong>Not Chapter Eight of iApuckettlypse<strong>

Outside the Fortress of Lassitude thunder made a banshee noise and lightening clawed the midnight sky. The earth trembled with the footsteps of approaching giants and terrible warfare. The air was redolent with need and seemed to convulse with distant cries.

Inside, Skeeves, the faithful family detainer passed the vacant gym, the quiet media center, the overflowing trophy room and finally the saddest chamber, the empty writing room of his master, WhiteKnightro. The various computers hummed as shelf after shelf of books, papers and optical disks sat in orderly silence.

On the dual flat screens was chapter eight, and chapter nine, the lonely cursor blinking in a crowded sea of text, the word count over 6000, with vast spaces between paragraphs and blocks of dialogue.

A single tear ran down the man servant's pale cheek. He heard the demonic din outside and knew that WhiteKnightro was once again commanding the Knight Brigade. The People's Champion had promises to keep outside the realm of FanFiction. While there was no place he would rather be, no duty more sacred than moving the story ahead, he was torn by the ferocious polarity of these words: "A man does what he says he will do."

The gentleman's gentleman remembered this exchange before his master went to face the endless duties howling outside:

"Master, please, you must write! You must publish! You have promised that Sunday you would continue to share the fate of lovely Sam and noble Freddie. You promised the dancing shoes!" his tone was pleading.

"Rise my friend, we are all equals here."

Skeeves complied but did so reluctantly knowing he was in the presence of greatness.

"I did promise a Sunday publication, but while I toiled to make the tale the best it could be, the forces of Kung Fu treachery have once again gathered like ghouls at the grave. You hear the sounds. The calls from the sick, the weary, children and friends, even doubters reach for me this week. I would not be who I am were I to leave them weeping in the tempest. How could I wax eloquent about goodness and duty and most of all true love if I failed those who cry for me now?"

"What about the reviews you owe to the others who labor, what about the letters you have yet to reply to?"

The towering figure closed his eyes, his magnificence visibly dimming however briefly. Skeeves knew how seriously the Great One took those obligations.

"When will you publish next my master?"

"I cannot say. Soon I hope. But I will not publish until the tale is such that it honors the Last Read."

"The Last Read master? Capital L capital R?"

"Indeed, the Last Read. Remember friend of friends, the story will live on after me, after you, perhaps past the stones in the field, but more importantly, somewhere, out there, someone will find this story, and it may be the last thing they read before their heart is broken, before the cut of tragedy, before they step off the curb and the angels sweep down to lift them to the next plane. In addition to the pain that life brings, would you have them experience a half-ass chapter? Would you wish such a thing on anyone? I cannot do it. By Grabthar's Hammer, I shall not! This is my promise and my burden. While my words and stories will always be flawed, imperfect things, I shall never offer less than my best effort."

He might have gone on, Skeeves wasn't sure, having drifted off after the word, "burden." Because when you get right down to it, WhiteKnightro has too many commitments, and he's boring as hell to listen to.


	9. After Rumble

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on "NOT chapter 8" or other chapters:**

**Julefor, Movie Pal, Urias, jhuikmn08, irishfan62, mizkntuhke, coiwy1 and **

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled. Apologies if my communication resembled mumbling on the page. It's been quite a week here at the Fortress of Lassitude.**

**I mentioned in earlier notes that these concluding sections have been a real animal to wrestle to the ground. What you are about to read isn't the long walk home after all; before I could put them on the walk I had some clean-up and set-up after the fight in chapter seven. In order to work with the numbering system on the site I'm adjusting the chapter numbering. So you are reading chapter nine at this time. Chapter eight is relegated to the realm of apocryphal books and collectables.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns **_**iCarly**_**. I own a Toyota Camry. **_**iCarly**_** has more features, but I'm the only one driving the Camry. **

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><p><strong>Chapter Nine: After Rumble<strong>

Sam Puckett, her hair greasy, dirty and tangled looked at him. Freddie saw the moles on her face with blond wires spiraling out of each brown mound. Acne wept wetly on her cheeks, her teeth crooked, blackened or missing. What did she weigh now? Two hundred maybe? She looked awful, a lumbering hag who lurked in some child's bedtime closet.

The Sam-as-troll picture burst apart in a flash of golden curls and sunny, gorgeous, electrically sexy reality the instant she spoke to him. Why couldn't she have gotten ugly, fat, or even have some bad breath? No. She was still spellbinding, a fairy tale beauty with the ability to reach straight inside him and control the beat of his heart. Looking at her was like some gypsy's curse: "She will torment your body and mind; she will consume your daylight thoughts and burn like fire in your dreams. And your eyes will cling to her; beg to behold her whenever she is near."

"Johnny says we can go," Sam said. Freddie avoided direct exposure to her blue eyes like they were radioactive.

The idea that he owed his freedom to a guy named Fat Johnny was one more strange brick in what was becoming the strangest night of his life. In his association with Sam Puckett he had skirted the law a few times but tonight as the handcuffs closed on his wrists he was sure he was going to the city jail. It was impossible to not hear his mother screaming in the permanent quarters she occupied in the back of his head. Then Fat Johnny, a friend of Sam's showed up (Freddie's first thought on meeting him was honestly, _where on Earth does Fat Johnny find pants?_) moments later cops were removing the cuffs from Fred, Sam and Gibby. Ramone Contreras and his three broken _caballeros_ were less fortunate. The out of state warrants alone guaranteed them some time in a municipal hotel. The discovery of controlled substances and firearms in their vehicle sent the needle deep into the red.

Freddie had watched Sam and Fat Johnny. She clearly respected the big man and his words and contact reminded him of some favorite uncle who had made a death bed promise to watch out for a special niece. Watching them he felt like two Freddies, one happy that someone seemed to be protecting her. The other clearly jealous that someone seemed to be protecting her. It made no sense to him, but he was used to that, his relationship with Sam Puckett rarely made sense to his logical mind. It seemed outside the world of pure intelligence. It was somehow bigger than mind.

The night sky over Shade was blue black but the stars could not be seen. The three of them, Sam, Gibby and Freddie walked out of the restaurant. The electric sign above bathed them in lime green light. Wind chimes made a soothing, extra-terrestrial sound and Freddie's inner geek desperately wanted some Martian wise man to walk up to explain what was happening to all of them. Instead the three of them stood without conversation, the pinging of the chimes mixing with occasional traffic noise.

Freddie looked up at a full moon, a giant pearl suspended in pinched cloud fingers. He was steeling himself for a conversation with Sam but he was no longer sure what he was going to say, no longer sure what he felt. He had come here ready to shake hands, apologize for any wrong he had done her, express his very real anger at how she had treated him, maybe duck a final swing and leave Seattle behind forever. Then he and Sam had that moment. Just before the fight, she smiled at him. It was like something flew across the room and stuck in his chest. He remembered the sensation from the time he chose to kiss her in the asylum, a hot meteor of recognition that buried itself deep inside him and began to throb and burn. He was sure she felt something too. But Sam wasn't real big on facing her feelings, and frankly was it really his job to make her do so? Had she changed at all? Her first, honest reaction when seeing him was to hit him. All night long prior to the fight she had vilified him. He wondered what version of Sam was standing by him right now. Yes, they needed to talk, and it needed to be the last time.

Something about it finally ending made him shiver. Why? They hadn't been together in years, but neither had she ever been really gone. In his heart he wanted…something. But maybe Sam didn't have it to offer, whatever "it" was.

He had to avoid looking at her-that was certain. Looking at her melted his brain, dissolved his resolve. It was hard being a man, semi-controlled by passion and raging biological urges. One conclusion his romantic pairings with women had brought him to: there was no logical in biological. That was several orders of magnitude more true for Sam and Freddie. Surely women didn't have such hormonal craziness.

Sam could not take her eyes off Freddie. She sensed that tonight was her last chance. She didn't even know her last chance at what exactly but she recognized the tension in her belly. She wondered if helping him in the insane fight earlier made any progress in repairing the damage she had done to him. She had destroyed any trust he had in her when she broke his heart. As a result of that decision she had new trust issues to deal with. Tonight, a man named Fat Johnny had shown her another in a string of kindnesses, but he was an older man, so at some point his lies would be revealed. All men lie. The only man on the planet she completely trusted was standing beside her staring at the moon wanting nothing to do with her and she couldn't blame him.

Her head was clear of the rage that consumed her when she heard that he was at the door at the beginning of the evening. She felt a mix of shame and profound confusion, shame at hitting him, shame at treating someone who had never done her any real wrong so scornfully. The confusion came because she kept hearing Gibby say earlier, "He loves you" and that was like a bomb going off in front of her. She couldn't see or hear now. He loved her? How was it possible? Love has to be earned, maintained. Okay Freddie loved her, but maybe it was friendly love, or brotherly love, or food-that-makes-you-sick love, like Carly said once, "I love Burger Master onion rings but I don't dare eat them."

Freddie wasn't acting like he loved her. He was treating her like a stranger on the bus, polite, kind, like they had never kissed or been totally naked together in body and soul. What did she expect? She had been an out of control, a super-charged fire breathing version of herself whenever Freddie Benson was around. All her life something about him stirred the deepest possible reactions. She recognized that now, but had only reflected on it during the time when her life with James Ryan was concluding. She had spent the last year coming to grips with the ruin she had caused for herself. This evening she needed to face what she had done to Freddie years ago and tonight. If he did still love her, was that enough? What did she feel? Did she still love him? She was very sure that she needed him, and admitting that was like being cut with jagged metal.

They had been together and broken up so many times. The first time they broke up they were simply too young to understand the enormity of what they were becoming so they ran to safe corners. It was like stage one, laying a new foundation of friendship, a kind of evolution. The attraction certainly never went away. Even now it pulsed inside her, she felt like some cat ready to pounce. Part of her wanted to devour him. What do you call a place where impulse and logic clash and something exists that is good but you cannot comprehend it?

Gibby. Gibby's jaw and eye hurt from the punches he took. His knuckles were scrapped from the punches he threw. What a great night this was! He had seen old friends come together. One was an artist whose work Gibby believed in. Only a genius could grow a lawn of Kentucky chub grass indoors. Gibby had tried for years with no success, but he would never admit it, it was a rare source of shame. Another friend was a woman who could not face her own hidden (very, very, well hidden) attraction to him, and the other two, well what they had was so obvious to him now. Earlier this evening he was arguing that Sam was a nut, but watching her fight back there to protect Freddie with terrifying ferocity he turned one of his special mental corners where she was concerned. He was glad that he fixed everything by telling Sam how things were. He was confident that the pair was on their way to some kind of explosive make-up sex rendezvous as soon as he made a graceful exit.

Oh yeah, he didn't get murdered tonight (bonus points!). Under his shirt was the hair pelt that Patrice loved. It felt really good on his skin. The pleasure made him think of Tasha who still lived in Seattle and how she loved late night surprises…

"Looks like you and I have a matched set," Freddie said, pointing at Gibby's right eye.

Gibby started, his furry thinking derailed. Running his tongue over his front teeth, he said, "Do loose teeth fall out?"

"No, they firm right up. No worries," Sam responded.

Freddie's mind was in that place he dreaded. The night of the lock-in Sam exposed her confused attraction and it sent him to the world of anti-Freddie where thinking had reduced value. He was there again. His logical mind, his anger, they wrestled and all the while she stood there looking like a dream calling to the parts of him that still prowled in some ancient jungle. He had to keep his mind on his goal, which was to face Sam, tell her she had treated him badly and… well that was where it got fuzzy. Standing here, trying to pretend she was just some girl he took to the movies once was hard and probably stupid. She was so much more in his life. Old friend, opponent, best lover, ex-lover. She was undeniably the most remarkable woman he had ever known. Not just her creative mind and uncanny strength, but the incredible attraction he had towards her. He wasn't sure when it started, but it had not gone away. She was not the most beautiful woman in the world but some illogical part of him could not get enough of her. That was going to make saying goodbye even harder.

She, he was aware, was staring at him. What on Earth did that mean? He didn't think she was going to hit him, but he didn't think she was going to punch him as her initial greeting tonight, either. Predicting her behavior this evening was like betting on the next celebrity scandal. Still, when the fight broke out she was instantly his oldest and best friend, or maybe she imagined that the three guys she sent to the hospital were all him. If he thought about it, he didn't know her anymore. He had made a point of not staying Sam-current. He had closed the door on Sam. Still, he had to express his gratitude for her help.

He sucked in the warm night air, and then spoke to her for the first time since the cuffs had come off. "Thanks Sam, I appreciate you getting my back like that."

Her face clouded over, "What did you think you were doing?" her tone was sharp, almost parental. She sounded like Marissa Benson.

"What, when?" _Was she going all nutso again? Stay mad Sam, that will make dealing with you easier—I can walk from mad Sam. _He prepared for the final round.

"When? The big fight scene in the last chapter," she made a thumbing gesture toward the restaurant.

"I…" he stammered.

"What if they had brought their guns inside? What if they started shooting? Innocent people could have been killed," she did not add that HIS death was really the only one that mattered to her. Sam grew up knowing that innocent people get dropped all the time. Her current bad neighborhood wasn't the worst she'd lived in.

Freddie could not get past how she sounded so much like his, crazy, protective, loving mother. He imagined pulling on her face to see a rubber mask came off exposing the face of Marissa Benson. And she'd have gotten away with too if it weren't for those darn meddling kids and their dog… Wow. Too much _Scooby Doo_ as a kid. He refocused, considered her words, for an instant he thought about challenging her, but he had spent most of his life fighting with Sam Puckett. Not tonight. He dropped the thought of fighting in favor of owning his mistake.

"You're right. What I did was stupid." What stood out for him was not being wrong in his risk of everyone's well being but how incredible she looked in the verdant light. Looking at her had always been his downfall. This was like when he was a little boy. He was going to have to walk the dark hall with his eyes closed so the monster didn't get him. Except in this case the monster was a hypnotically beautiful girl and he wanted to be gotten so badly he ached. Why was his love life so complicated? Did other nerds have these kinds of problems? The memory of old model train chums flared up from his cerebral cortex and he realized that having any kind of love life put him ahead of many.

Sam waited for his pushback, but nothing came. _Please don't let him go back to being Saint Freddie from earlier tonight_, she thought. Fighting with him had always been her way into him, but tonight fighting was not the approach she needed. She needed to start something new with him and she had no idea how or what. She had to find some forward motion that included Freddie Benson.

Gibby looked at them, he was smiling, reminded of what it was like when the chemistry worked. It was like watching gears turning, engaging- a perfect engine. His jaw throbbed, and he remembered, sometimes when Sam and Freddie worked he would get hit with a sack of sandwiches. Still, undeniably some powerful energy was in the air, he said to Freddie, "Yep, Sam Puckett just nailed you for doing something impulsive and thoughtless. How does that feel?" He laughed before he could even finish the sentence. He pulled out his pearPhone.

"That's how they found you, Gib," Freddie said, pointing at the device.

"Huh?"

Sam did her Gibby-as-feeb, voice, "Everybody wants to know what Gibby is doing."

Freddie smiled at him, "Yep, Sam Puckett just nailed you for doing something impulsive."

Gibby couldn't hide his pleasure. This felt good, younger, innocent somehow. He looked at his phone, "Yeah, I guess Patrice was getting my updates. You think Ramone has her Splashpage password?"

Freddie made his smirk face, the "duh" sound effect was implied, "He seemed kind of possessive and controlling to me so it seems likely, yeah."

Gibby nodded. He hadn't wondered how they found him to begin with. Guys like Freddie sweated those details, still, he said, "Thanks for taking the heat for me back there."

"Careful Gib, Sam's gonna tell me how stupid I was," Freddie joked, fully expecting a Sam slam.

Sam did have something mean to say about Freddie pretending to be Gibby, but she deliberately chose silence and while Hell did not freeze over just then, it did get a few degrees cooler.

Gibby looked at his phone, "I called Spencer and told him we were cool. Carly was sleeping and I told him not to wake her. She'd just drive down her all tense and chiz." Tasha's contact information came up on the display. "I'm gonna catch a cab back to Bushwell. What are you kids gonna do?" Gibby asked. Freddie recognized the leer. WTF? Just a few hours ago Gibby wanted him to chew Sam out.

Sam looked Freddie straight in the eye, her stare like two diamond drills, "You and I need to talk," she said. There was no way she was letting him leave without talking.

He froze when they locked eyes, the look on his face stabbed through her. She felt afraid when she saw that face.

"Sure," he replied. The Sam force hit him full-on, making him feel like he was playing guitar with mittens on. When she looked at him his control slipped, his whole world changed. He hated this reaction and he loved it.

Gibby looked at Freddie, "Dude, I'm gonna do the cab. You need me to come get you later text me and I'll bring the rental."

Freddie nodded then extended his fist, "Thanks man, nobody has my back better than you."

Gibby bumped his fist into Freddie's and said, "Anyplace, anytime. But, tonight, this lady had your back, I just took a couple punches," Gibby nodded at her. "Thanks for saving the day Sam. I mean that."

"I probably owed you," she replied. Then she added, "Thanks for what you said back there."

Gibby looked at her, then Freddie, then back to her, "You kids have a good time."

Sam had no idea what he meant, but he seemed sincere. Freddie recognized Gibby's playboy twinkle. Both Sam and Freddie knew they were skirting the edge of Gibby space where normal thinking and natural laws had diminished authority.

Gibby winked at them and said, "Gibbaaaay!" The two watched him walk to the corner, taping at the keypad of his pearPhone.

"You and Gibby have really bonded," she said.

"He's got a big heart. A non-traditional head space, but that heart, man, everybody should have a Gibby."

"What exactly was that fur thing Baldimore threw on the table?" she asked.

"Baltimore?"

She waved her hand dismissively, "your dancing partner."

He hesitated. He hated having to explain things he didn't understand, and this one was WAY out there in deep Gibby space. "Uhm, Gibby uses it with Patrice because she digs werewolves."

"Uses it how?"

His pause was substantial. "I have never asked exactly how it…works. You really want to know?" he said.

They stood for a moment in silent reflection. They did not look at each other. The alien wind chimes rang exotically.

She puffed her lips out, head rocking in acknowledgement, her features producing a vaguely sour expression, "Naaah, I'm good."

Then, for the first time that evening the two old friends found common ground and laughed. Some weight seemed to slip loose.

What she said next bolted from deep inside her avoiding all of her barriers and walls, literally escaping to freedom.

"I missed you," she said. Sam Puckett did not admit such things, but she needed something new to reach him.

He said nothing. His silence caused a terrible fear to flame under her heart.

He didn't dare look at her, but he finally said, "I missed you more."

She closed her eyes as the terror flame dimmed and another kind, something hopeful, began to spark, "No, I missed you more," she said.

"No way," he corrected her, he was going to tell her just what he had been through. He was going to get his say.

Her anger began to flare; he had no idea what she had been through during their time apart. Then, some new thing inside her pulled the fury back.

"We're not going to fight over who missed who more are we?" she asked. She was willing to fight with him, but fighting for him felt more right somehow.

The smile on his face seemed to call on muscles that hadn't been used in years, then he turned, facing her, letting the full power of her Sam-ness wash over him.

"You hungry?" he asked. Her hair, her face, her eyes, her smile, her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, Sam top down to the ground blazed in front of him like a midnight sun.

She furrowed her brow, "Dude. Always." Her heart raced at the thought of Freddie and food. And she noted Freddie preceded the food.

As she glowed silently, magically, he said, "Our meal is back in there on the carpet. You want to grab a burger?"

"I've got an idea. You mind a little walk?" she asked.

"Think you can still carry me if I collapse from the stress?"

She smiled, "No doubt in my mind."

"Mine either. Lead the way," he almost added "Princess Puckett" but he feared too many rocks under the tide he was surfing just now. It was all the control he could muster.

The long walk home began.

* * *

><p><strong>AN Okay, chapter ten will be the Long Walk Home. Not sure when it will be published. It's five thousand words and not close to being done. I should put a warning on it like one of those life rafts: "Stand back, not sure how big this thing gets." Actually I don't think they word it that way, but do any of have one of those inflatable rafts sitting around the house you could check? Yeah, me neither.**

**I did my part here. Let me know your thoughts but remember how sensitive and fragile I am. Think of me as a kitten with big, pleading eyes.**


	10. The Long Walk Home Part I

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter 9:**

**Julefor, Movie Pal, Urias, jhuikmn08, mizkntuhke, , bluejay63, Darsnider, Purple550, afanofanfic, Mike2101, TheWrtrInMe, irishfan62, dulscar, Mack and sincerely sweet**

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled.**

**This is the first part of the long walk home (which in my mind is now called the long talk home). I'm trying some things in this chapter and I'm breaking the walk up into parts with the goal of a richer, better product. If it sucks, hey you're out a couple of minutes. **

**None of my adventures have taken me to Seattle (No kung-fu treachery? No super criminals? No bus fare?). Because I have no idea what downtown Seattle is like, I've just made up the space Sam and Freddie are walking through. Any reader who knows Seattle may be scratching his or her head here. So, resist the urge to ask: "Knightro where is this place?" It's only in my head along with memories of some pretty unusual dates, some lovely sunsets and a few disturbing voices.**

**Several of you have said, "Why is this rated M?" To all readers I say, "I've changed it to T." So if any of you young, pure types out there are expecting your little sister's **_**iCarly**_**, turn back now. **

**If you find yourself getting bored with this one, check out the Seddieverse community started by the talented and thoughtful TheWrtrInMe. That space is collecting Seddie stories from across this board to make finding the good stuff a little easier. At least one story there, "Sessions and Sanity" by Pieequals36 deserves more attention. **

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. Sean Connery is James Bond, the first e-mail was sent in 1973, the cheetah is the fastest land mammal, the greyhound is second fastest. Some of these I believe, some are facts. Some are both.**

**Chapter Ten: The Long Walk Home Part I: (Tunnel of Love?)**

Harmonica music. They hear harmonica music, forlorn and haunting, then guitar, then voice. A lone musician sits on a stool singing on a patio. Sam and Freddie stand on the outside of a short wrought iron fence at some outdoor restaurant. They listen to the singer's voice, not quite sure of the words. The lyrics mention love, mistakes made and the resulting pain.

A lovely night embraces them, shadows suspended in the distant sky by city light; warm breezes filled with the scent of distant rain stroke the skin. Sam and Freddie both like metropolis after dark with its muffled bar music sounds, traffic noises echoing off concrete walls, streams of neon lights and the endless buffet of smells from all the restaurants.

"We should get going," she says.

He says nothing but gestures for her to lead the way.

Tonight they are supposed to be talking, but they aren't. They walk side by side but they are not together. All around them are lovers, two by two. In any direction, couples, man and woman, woman and woman, man and man, many arm in arm, smiling and laughing. Freddie feels mocked by each pair. What did he do to deserve being alone? His only mistake was loving this girl walking silently beside him. He shakes his head ashamed at ever thinking of her as a mistake. Inside him anger and affection are at each other's throats, fighting like two cats in a bag.

She isn't certain what is going on. She keeps looking at him, amazed that he is here. Her earlier anger is gone replaced by feelings she cannot identify, they flash inside her like fireworks in a night sky. The last time she felt this way was at the high school lock-in, knowing there was a course of action she must take but afraid of its meaning. Talking has never been her thing but tonight she senses she must rise outside herself as she did that night. She has never resisted a fight, but her opponent now shifts and dances away in some fog just beyond her reach. She senses that fighting for Freddie, not with him is the key.

The silence between them is more than awkward but not painful. Both have things they need to say, but neither knows where to begin. He is trying to decide what he will say to her. What he has to say is complicated and he needs to get it right. She broke his heart, shattered his trust. Before he leaves her tonight he will have expressed his anger. But anger isn't all he is feeling. There is a powerful attraction, and he wonders does she feel it too? It confuses him, like waves of heat off a desert blacktop distorting the way things actually are. Tonight he wears two faces. One face tries to articulate his fury with a civilized discourse. When he practices the speech in his head he sounds like a lawyer:

_Sam, I respect your decision to conclude our relationship, but I must be candid, the overall impact left me sad, angry and ultimately dysfunctional. I believe it is important that I share that data with you._

He rolls his eyes as the words echo in his brain.

The other face is hungry, the words from that face are not calm, they are hot, urgent whispers in the ear with a vocabulary that bubbles up from below his waist.

"So how was your flight?" she asks. She knows it's lame, but the conversation needs to start.

He cannot believe Sam Puckett is doing small talk, but it's better than Freddie's State of the Relationship Address or his "sleep with me" murmurs.

"We ran into an _iCarly_ fan."

"What is that? They are like everywhere! I wonder how that chick from _Totally Terry_ deals with those chizheads."

He takes a little offence at the term, "She wasn't a chizhead, she was very sweet."

Sam feels a twinge, "That's guy talk for she was hot."

Freddie shakes his head at the illogic of her statement, "No, guy talk for she was hot, would be 'wow, she was hot.' I mean, yeah, she was cute, but she just liked _iCarly_." He remembers lots of these kinds of conversations with Sam, but he never understood them very well. What he understands is the soaring sensation of just being with her again. He clearly realizes just how much he misses her company. It's like a lost limb has been restored. Every exchange with her feeds something in him, fuels some engine.

Sam has to press down the totally unreasonable feelings that bite inside her. "Gibby put the moves on her like he did the waitress tonight?"

Freddie laughs. "Yeah, he tried, but she had more in common with me."

A tornado of reactions, none of which she can justify, spins up inside her, "Well, it's nice that Gib lets you have some action."

"Ac…? That isn't what I meant— she, well, like me she was more attracted to you and Carly."

"Oh." and Sam laughs lightly. For her there is relief that he did not meet and fall in love with this woman, although neither the fear nor the relief should matter at this point they aren't together. She doesn't know what they are.

Sam's laugh is a soft, richly feminine emission and for just a second Freddie closes his eyes and walks in her sound.

"You're still attracted to me and Carly?" she asks, and she is at once embarrassed for asking and afraid he will say, "Just Carly, really," even though that fear should be long dead.

He hears something in her voice, his answer here may be pivotal, he feels that more than thinks it.

"You're joking right? Have you seen you and Carly? Major DOING!"

She feels a warmth rush across her cheeks, "Well, it's pretty hard to be attracted to someone who's been a rag to you all night."

"Don't talk about my ex like that," he says with a smile.

"I was talkin' about Carly," and she gives him a playful tap in the solar plexus. She is surprised at the plated muscle she feels but that is secondary to just getting to touch him.

He sees the tap coming and tenses for it. Suddenly the hundreds of thousands of captain's chair and bicycle crunches are worth it. He is equally aware of a desire to touch her again. These sensations interfere with his purpose for talking to her, but they are like some addiction, he needs more.

"Heck Puckett, you raging around, me bruised and aching -it was just like old times," He gives her shoulder a gentle bump, and that simple connection sends sparks through each of them.

"That's kind of depressing," his touch is so delicious. Sadly, the only way she can think to contact him again is to hit him and she knows that has to stop.

"Not to me," he says, his hand actually tingles where it touched her. He is being pulled by some insane gravity that he cannot fully comprehend. Putting his arm around her would feel so right just now.

She inhales like someone about to plunge underwater, "I wanted to say I was sorry for…"

He almost interrupts with a vicious, "for dumping me? For flushing us down the toilet?" he is surprised by the fierceness of his reaction, but he is silent, letting her continue.

"…y'know, being so rough on you tonight and stuff," her voice trails off and he can barely hear "stuff." That isn't good enough she tells herself. There is more, much more to say. She has a mountain of regret to move and she is shoveling with a spoon.

This is his moment; he should tell her now, spray a hose of his resentment and bitterness, open up and let all the ugly fury torrent out of him in a boiling current that sweeps her away. But he doesn't. He holds it in. Once he speaks his mind it will be really over and that prospect is chilling.

"'S cool," he replies.

The conversation stops as they arrive at a broad, multi-laned street. The motor traffic before them is bumper-to-bumper now, congestion caused by some kind of accident in the intersection ahead, cars loiter, churning up noxious fumes like people clustered in some designated smoking section. Windows are down and various musical tastes vie for supremacy. One car with blacked-out glass rumbles a thunderous bass noise that shakes the bone. There are sirens in the distance. The result is a symphony of noise that reflects the feelings and thinking in each of them.

Their silence continues as she leads them across a shuffling parking lot of glowing, crawling cars-a kind of pop art river of automobiles, all shining metal, shimmering lights and thrumming motors. He is cautious as they weave between the bumpers, but he cannot keep his eyes off her exquisite behind as it swings in those black pants. He questions his motives here. He is not thinking he is feeling. Anger and arousal wrestle. He wants to hold her, squeeze her, yell at her, shake her and taste her. He does not trust himself and only she has ever created this reaction in him. It thrills and mystifies him.

He notices one older man behind the wheel of a beat-up truck with a sleeping woman seated beside him. The man is clearly watching Sam, admiring her with his man's eyes, he notices Freddie looking and the two meet in the air for a split second. He gives Freddie a thumbs up, and Freddie gives a slight, acknowledging nod.

She hears Gibby's voice between her ears, "He loves you," and she wonders what that means, if it even counts for anything. She feels like she has to fix everything and when she feels pressured her temper begins to bubble and pop like sauce heating on a stove. She must control that reaction. Angry Sam cannot help anymore tonight.

They mount the opposite sidewalk and continue further into the city. Freddie takes a run at moving this ahead by saying, "I want to ask you something."

"Watt choo wanna know?" she says in one of her many _iCarly_ funny voices. For some reason he can almost taste an Uber Blueberry Blast coldly stinging the roof of his mouth.

"You seem to be in a better mood now, I mean, compared to earlier this evening."

"Yeah, I break a few bones and I calm right down."

"Decking me wasn't enough to chillax you?" As the words leave his mouth he is aware the flames could leap up again but he is also aware that tonight he is at maximum density. He will be heard this last time regardless of the reaction or result.

He does not look at her face to see the regretful curl to her lips as she says, "Yeeeeah, I shouldn't have done that—like I said, sorry."

Sam Puckett saying she's sorry again? How often has he ever heard that in his life, now twice in one night? It does not make him feel better and that surprises him. Does he want an apology? What would he do with one? Record it on his phone and listen to it over and over on pudding night at the old folks' home?

"Rough day at work?" he asks.

She snorts, "Rough couple of years."

He nods, "Yeah, I can relate."

She marches into the mouth of an alley. Freddie halts. The opening between two rows of buildings is like some architectural wound. The view ahead is a wet and greasy strip, a dirty gash on the face of the street. Shadows twist at odd angles creating eerie shapes. Down the narrow, gloomy strip are cones of light separated by pools of black. Steam rolls out of vents and hovers above the ground. The smell is bad, wafting up from dumpsters and hobo pee on the bricks. Something large and furry scurries into the murk.

He looks ahead, immobile. She is suddenly aware of what he is thinking. She has forgotten the near telepathic connection they had at times.

"Shortcut," she explains looking back. "Scared?"

"Y'know, the only reason I can think to walk in there would be to bring my parents so they could be murdered and make me into Batman," he says.

She laughs, "Your nerd is hanging out."

"That's nothing, want me to blow my train whistle?"

She rolls her eyes but the joy on her face is unmistakable. His train club defined nerd better than any dictionary. Yet this nerd's smile is like some heat ray that sets her blood on fire. The mention of Batman stirs a memory, something special she has not thought about in a long time.

They hustle ahead into the oppressive passageway. A clattering noise is being created by a large African American man with a gleaming shaved head and gigantic biceps as he empties a massive plastic tub into a dumpster. The thunderous racket it makes seems to announce the advent of the garbage god.

"Evenin'" he says, "beautiful night, ain't it?" his voice is a phlegmy rattle.

Freddie nods in agreement, "Sure is" he says, walking.

"Yeah buddy, gonna head home for some Bow Chicka-Wow-Wow on the ruth."

Freddie is not clear if the man is going to have sex on the roof or on someone named Ruth, but he reflexively replies, "Yes, that seems like a good idea," his words bounce off the man's back as he retreats inside.

Sam bursts out laughing, "Oh you dork," she does an exaggerated imitation, "Yes, that seems like a good idea."

It is like they are seventeen again, "What? What am I supposed to say to that?" he asks with faux outrage.

"Uh, you don't have to say anything," She feels a long empty, Freddie-shaped space inside her filling.

He stops and looks at her, he physically aches. He wants to prolong this journey because the prospect of good bye is the most frightening he can envision, "Can we walk side-by-side?" he asks.

"I guess. Why?" she is excited, why would he want to do that? What if he wants to hold her hand? _You are an adult, Puckett, get a grip._

"Because my mother told me that's what a gentleman does when walking down a filthy, hepatitis and sepsis laden alley with a lady."

Another _iCarly_ voice, southern, with a fanning hand gesture springs out of her, "Why Mr. Benson, ah do declarah, please turn off that charm."

It feels like the sun just came out. _There she is_, he thinks. This is what is missing from his other dates, from Ashley, and Tammy and that girl from accounting with the incredible legs. Whatever it is, it just popped out and winked at him.

Sam resumes her normal voice, "Your mother would have a cardiac if she knew you were in this alley."

"I arranged some pillows under the antiseptic covers in my room, she thinks I'm dreaming of my next disinfection," he wiggles his thick brown brow in a clear mockery of his neurotic former home life.

She laughs and it feels wonderful. She has forgotten how often they laughed together. He has made her laugh more tonight than she has laughed all year, and she blinks back tears. _ No, you are a Puckett_, she thinks. She is reminded how his words could make her cry. Once again, Batman comes to mind as she recalls something incredible Freddie did for her.

"Do you remember that letter you sent me when we first started dating?" she asks.

He considers it, ultimately shaking his head. "Mmmm, no, why?"

"In it you told me we were like Batman and Catwoman, and you made sure to tell me that you were Batman."

He chuckles and nods as the memory rises to the surface "Oh yeah, I got really worked up about that letter. I remember I wanted to be sure I was the guy in the relationship."

"Uh, who else would you be?"

He shuffles, a little boy movement, "Well, this is going to sound pretty weak but I felt kind of dominated by you. When we first dated I wasn't sure about my role. You, well, you had—have-a very powerful, uhm, viewpoint."

She is startled at that statement, but suddenly the depth of his commitment, the enormity of what they once were shines like a star. She swallows a massive chunk of shame and does what she does when there is too much feeling involved- she bulls ahead. Freddie's letter was a source of connection to him and she leans on it now.

"I never told you how much I loved that letter, how much it meant to me."

He nods again, "I worked hard on it. I was so excited by our being together, and confused by-us. I didn't know who I was with you, who I was supposed to be. You were my friend, and I cared about you, and I was a seventeen year old boy in the grip of his hormones. I remember being obsessed with seeing you walk around in panties. Did I put that in there? Oh wait, I forgot, you hate that word—sorry."

"I'm a woman finishing college now, Fredstick, I don't have word issues. And yes you did mention me walking around in my underwear."

"Then say it."

"Say what?"

"Say panties."

She shakes her head, lovely lips forming a smile that begs to be kissed. "You also asked me why I didn't weigh 300 pounds because of how much I could eat."

He notes that she does not say "panties" and makes a little check in the "Freddie Wins" column.

"I did not say any such thing."

"Oh yes you did."

"Really? Wow. I must have been incredible in the sack to make up for that."

That sentence falls to the oily, trash filled alley floor between them. She says nothing and he feels mildly embarrased. Then he realizes he is flirting with her and condemns himself for sending a mixed message. _Focus_ he thinks, but cannot begin to choose what he should focus on. Anger? Attraction? Another Batman reference?

She wonders if he is flirting and she is frozen to the filthy pavement unable to decide what to do. She wants to say so much that it all jams inside her creating silence. She reflects on how poor her dating skills have always been. She wonders if that is why she started loving him, because he seemed to accept her despite how she was always lacking. She hears the sound of water running under a sewer grate. The memory of his letter pushes her ahead.

"I read that letter more times than anything else, even books for class that had tests."

"So you read it once?" he says with a smirk.

"I almost finished it," she replies the play between them making her head swim. She does not mention his letter made her cry or how it frightened her. In that letter he told her he "wanted it to last" yet, it still ended for the first time in that elevator where she almost gave herself to him.

"I never knew that," he says. He is remembering the letter and how she did seem to draw closer. But they still broke up for the first time in that Bushwell elevator. That first break-up of many was by far the dumbest, but it set the stage for a retrenched friendship. After the break-up they grew tighter, bonded, they seemed to work together better. That night was the first time they exchanged, the words, "I love you." The memory runs through him like voltage, he swallows, his mouth suddenly dry.

They stand there, looking at each other.

"We should get going," they each say, or something close, then laugh nervously. He gestures ahead and they walk side by side. She waits for his hand to reach for hers but it does not come. Something inside her withers a little.

They walk into the steam that billows from vents and covers the alley floor. The white clouds cling to them, the rising temperature causing a conflict of moistures, perspiration meeting condensation, a sauna effect.

"I feel like we should be wearing leather coats and walking in slow motion toward a big showdown," he says.

"Wait for it," she advises.

"Huh?"

She does not explain, letting the air answer for her as the rot smell in the alley changes. Suddenly there is a parmesan cheese aroma, invisible, unmistakable, surrounding them. He slows.

"Whoa, that's incredible," he says.

"Ain't it cool?" she responds. "We're behind a bunch of restaurants and all the kitchen vents empty back here. She matches his pace, taking a deep breath, savoring it, she releases a tiny moan, and that noise seizes him, his hips twitch slightly.

"Next will be barbecue," she explains, and as they progress into the weird, heated darkness sure enough a smoked meat redolence embraces them. She moans louder this time, her head back, eyes closed as she fans the wet air to her face with a lifting motion. He is staring at her hands illuminated in the tungsten light from overhead. Her nails are beautiful, feminine. He remembers his surprise at how softly her hands could touch the first time they were not used to slap his cheek but to caress it.

She is drifting ahead, in the grip of her food intoxication, "now Chinese," she declares and teriyaki and soy scents fly on unseen wings into the air of the nasty alley. She is almost floating; she is magical, sensual, licking her lips, lost in the saturated atmosphere. He looks at her, blonde hair blowing in the moist, savory mist. He remembers brushing that hair, the silken feel in his fingers. His heart is slamming in his chest.

She continues like walking in a dream. He is aware of her shape, and memories of holding her, bare flesh pressing together, sliding wetly makes him tremble. He swallows again as urges rise and swell inside him. He draws in a large pull of the food soaked air. Would it be so bad to put his hands on her, bury himself in her neck, her lips, in the flesh of her-would she welcome it?

"Hey Benson! Check this out."

She is standing at the edge of a black pool where the light doesn't dare go beside an expensive parked car idling in the half gloom. The windows are up and fogged over, two bare, toes-up female feet press against the back passenger side window. The feet make strange fleshy circles in the sweaty glass that change shape in time with alternating pressure from the naked legs that vanish in the blurred interior. Club music throbs out of the vehicle drowning out other, primal sounds.

Sam stares at the scene.

"Uh, Sam?" he says to her.

"Can you believe they are back here in the Valley of Chiz doing it?"

He coughs as shame and sexuality clash like wild animals in his skull, "Uh, yeah, no class, get a room," his voice is cracking slightly. _She is more than that, _he reminds himself. Once they were friends, lovers, partners. What are they now?

"Sam, what are we now?" he asks.

If she even hears him is unclear as his question is lost in the noise from a violent eruption ahead.

"Dammit Amber!" A man's voice barks.

The shout from deeper in the ally is violent and comically Sam and Freddie jockey for position to protect the other. They exchange amused glances.

"I'm Batman," he reminds her.

"Catwoman don't need Batman for the protection," blue eyes flash bolts into dark chocolate pools as their eyes meet. For the briefest of moments they exchange something powerful and unnameable.

The next sound is female and shrill.

"Why didn't you just do her on the dance floor, Greg?"

The steam clouds part and they see a couple, maybe a little older than themselves. Both are dressed for a date and they look garishly out of place in the vile brick, beer and bile environment of the alley. They are arguing.

"Amber, let's just go back in and start over okay?" the speaker is disheveled, off balance, drunk.

"Why? Afraid your little skank will leave before you can get her number?" She leans toward him, her teeth exposed like fangs.

"Amber…" he says wearily.

"You're a liar, Greg! Like every guy ever!

Sam slows, she is listening now, Freddie slows as well, unsure of what to do. Working bars he has seen this scene so often he knows it goes nowhere good.

"What else have you lied about, Greg!" she is taunting him, daring a response.

Greg's eyes narrow as he spits out, "That skirt _does_ make your ass look big. It looks like a damn sofa cushion."

Freddie winces. He has thrown enough Gregs out of bars to know the alcohol is driving now.

Suddenly, the girl, Amber, looks at Sam, "Hey! Your guy lies, right?"

Sam shakes her head, "No."

Freddie looks at Sam sideways, _What guy? There's a guy? She didn't say anything about a guy! I'm walking around like a horn dog with some other guy's girlfriend? This night is insane!_

Amber shrieks, "Like Hell! They all lie! They say what we want to hear so they get what they want," spit flies off her painted lips as she yells.

"Not all of them," Sam says. Her voice is confident, experienced.

"Amber! Knock it off, screw them, this is just us."

Freddie starts to walk, but Sam remains, like she has walked into the middle of some movie. He stops and looks back at her, "Sam, c'mon, this is none of our business."

Sam is frozen, deeply invested in the argument of two strangers.

"Go to Hell, Greg, married men don't look at other women."

"I'm married, Amber, not dead!" Greg, his eyes watery and fire engine red, says to Freddie, "Hey buddy, you lie to yours, right?"

"Uh," Freddie responds, he remembers Sam's words just moments ago:_ you don't have to say anything_.

The man wobbles, the liquor making him sloppy on his feet, "Ha! See Amber? Guys have to lie to keep the crazy from getting TOO crazy. Hey dude, don't get married, it's a chick's license to let herself go!" He points at Amber, "See that butt? That butt used to be fine."

"Screw you Greg! I had your baby!"

"Yeah, that sure fixed everything. Next time ask me if I want to give up sleeping through the night. Ask me before you just decide you want a family, flippin' talk to me Amber!"

Amber makes a throwing gesture and Freddie hears something crash off to his left as she hurtles bawling into a doorway

"Chiz. Amber! I'm sorry babe!" Greg yells as he stumbles after her.

Sam gets her wish as Freddie's hand suddenly grasps hers and he begins a forced march toward the street lights blazing in the opening ahead. She runs to keep pace as he appears to be in flight from something that only he can see.

To say they exit the alley is inaccurate. The alley seems to vomit them out into the artificial glow of the city at night. Freddie looks back into an oddly impenetrable darkness. It hadn't seemed that dark going in. It is like he just walked out of some fever dream. He and Sam are both moist with sweat and condensed steam. He releases her hand as soon as they are out of the tunnel.

He mops his face with his forearm, "What. Was. That!" he seems to be asking the clouds above or the asphalt below as much as Sam.

She stares at her liberated hand. The disappointment she feels is almost tangible.

Finally, after a long silence, still staring into the alley he says, "Uh Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we headed?"

She makes a stabbing gesture with her finger indicating the street ahead.

That isn't what he meant.

The long walk continues…

**A/N**

**The letter Sam references in this story actually exists. I wrote a story called, "iCan't Send This" which is posted on this site (Hint: chapter five is the one you care about). If you are curious, check it out. It's only your life that might change. Great literature isn't just in schools and libraries and Amazon anymore. **

**Chapter eleven, The Long Walk Home (Part II: The Park) is next, but remember along with writing fiction I am also The People's Champion, a defender of truth, justice and reasonable gas prices (many of you know how well I'm doing on that front). A new threat has been discovered by my operatives. It is something called "The Unspeakable" I don't know exactly what it is, but the threat to everyone is clear, as is my obligation in such circumstances. This may interfere with my ability to, as we say in Fanfic, "update soon."**

**If you read this far, drop me a line.**


	11. Long Walk Part II: A Walk in the Park

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter 10:**

**Coiwy1, Julefor, Movie Pal, Urias, jhuikmn08, Purple550, afanofanfic, TheWrtrInMe, ThePursuit, DEETRIXJAAY, Mary Rachel, mintydinosaur, dulscar, and rajonrondo12 and mizkntuhke.**

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled.**

**Many of you wrote very positive and flattering commentary regarding chapter 10, the total effect of which can only be summed up one way:**

**Hope this chapter doesn't suck.**

**Most of this was written in an icy trench with numb fingers while one of the operatives of The Unspeakable, named Lord Frost, sent supernatural armies of cold (called Icesaurs) against me and the Knight Brigade. **

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain. Hmm, the gang travels to an AU where Sam must decide between Sherlock and Freddie—possible sham! Man, no doubt about it. I'm not getting enough sleep.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11: The Long Walk Home Part II: (A Walk in the Park)<strong>

The first time Freddie and Sam had sex went something like this:

Freddie had resisted Sam's efforts to deflower him with very profound arguments about the right setting, the right timing—everything had to be perfect because she was perfect—those were his exact words. Of course Sam melted despite her tremendous desire to rip off his clothes and consume him like a life-size Fat Cake. True to his word he pondered the issue deeply in order to come up with something special that would let Sam know how very special she was. With his mother's finances still crawling out of reversal he might have been able to use his credit card to get a five star hotel room but the Bensons could not afford it and explaining it to his mother would have been tougher than paying for it.

Like he did with everything that mattered, he planned Sam's Perfect First Time OAB (on a budget) like he'd draft a computer program or a research paper. He exploded the idea into component parts in Post-It notes and the dry erase board in his room. Her first time couldn't be just a single evening. She deserved more. He mapped out a weekend of special attention and fun. He started with a video invitation for Sam to come to a Friday movie night in his living room that coincided with his mother's trip to a nursing convention across the country and T-Bo's visiting family (T-Bo knew exactly what was going on and just bunked with a buddy for a couple of nights). The script for the video promised lots of excitement with many "but wait, there's more" enticements, making it clear that the two were spending their first weekend (nights and all) together. He concluded the video with, "Pack a bag 'cause this is our weekend, Princess."

For the segment called "First Time Friday Night" he would personally prepare some of Sam's favorite foods in small sample quantities in order to tease her appetite. Scattered throughout the weekend he organized meal delivery from some new restaurants she was curious about, but each breakfast would be prepared by him with various ham varieties as the star ingredient. He would make sure she saw a purple wrapped package and when she asked about it he would only answer that the present was for "after." The last night (called Concluding Ceremony on the project plan) would take place on the fire escape where they first kissed. There she would open the purple package that would contain a necklace with two tiny hugging figures made by a jeweler pal of Spencer's who let him make payments. His plan was to clip it around her neck as they watched the sunset under a blanket.

On First Time Friday Night Sam arrived having spent a substantial period across the hall with Carly getting ready. She looked so casually lovely that Freddie could see her on the insides of his eyelids. The movie night began with the "Freddie Fry" mini-buffet of favorites, then progressed into a "mix tape show" that he Cutting Room Flowed of Sam's favorite movie scenes that segued into a surprise, special (illegal) download of a new, as yet unreleased horror movie that was getting lots of buzz: _Paranormal Project. _ For much of the night they were bundled up in a warm "total comfort zone" nest Freddie had made out of pillows, blankets and sheets in front of the TV. Freddie spent the evening serving her treats, complimenting her ("Those earrings look great because they are on you,") touching and massaging her.

By the time he opened the so-cold-they-were-almost-slush glass bottles of Mexican Peppy Cola (with real sugar) she was in a wickedly pliable heat, totally aroused and more than completely trusting this young man to take care of her. His attentions had driven her to a state of physical need; to say she burned for him would not be inaccurate. The words, "Freddie pleeease" energized him in ways he could never imagine (and his imagination had gotten quite a work out since their make-out sessions had begun. He had become a kind of chronic imaginer).

The only bump was when he undid her bra. The clasp in back was like a Chinese finger puzzle. When she unhooked the front with a loving and hungry look he felt transported to some world of sliced bread. The nerd king could not imagine any more useful technology.

"Right here on the Galaxy Wars sheets?" she asked softly, pulling him to her.

"You afraid mom hasn't washed them?"

"No, I'm sure she has them disinfected every Saturday."

"Sunday, actually."

"Have you noticed that Nug Nug is looking at us…"

"No, I honestly can't take my eyes off of you when you are in a room."

"Mmm. Freddie Benson you are good at this."

"I have been thinking about you for so long," he said as he lingered over her eyes. The kiss that followed came out of some place that little girls grown to ladies dream about. He kept his own excitement in check and went slowly, thinking about her and how important she was. He followed his plan.

Their first time went pretty well. Sam had no big finale fireworks but the whole of his attentions was so loving and devoted she cried. He had accomplished his goal of making her feel special, rare and above all, loved. She slipped off into a deep and tasty sleep in his arms.

But Freddie, well, Freddie was wide awake. The instant his time arrived (fairly early on) his mood changed, it was like his excitement, his affection, his best intentions shot out of him leaving him feeling-empty. He hid it from her, because this moment was too important, but suddenly his head was no longer consumed with hearing Sam's ecstatic sounds, his focus shifted radically to a place crawling with fear, uncertainty and doubt.

_What did I do? _He thought again and again. His greatest fear, despite the precautions he took, was: what if she got pregnant? His head was not filled with romantic thoughts now. He saw college plans curling up in orange flames, heard his mother crying as disappointment with his actions crushed her and wiped out all her sacrifice raising him. He looked at sleeping Sam (who had a bit of a dragon snore he suddenly noticed) and felt for the first time ever looking at her as if his options were limited.

He had never, ever told her that. He believed that to share that information would be crushing, it would hurt her and he would rather die than ever hurt her. So he kept that moment of sober disappointment to himself on a lonely shelf in some deep, mental basement.

That secret shame had come rushing back to him when he watched the argument in the alley.

Now, as he walks with her he feels lost, feeling his way in a dark space. What is he doing here tonight? His goal is to say his piece and then say good-bye. Something about her presence, the affect she always has on him, has caused him to move off target.

The evening started as soft and warm, but the wind has picked-up and grown cool teeth that bite. Freddie's shirt lapels flutter like hummingbird wings, and Sam's golden hair fans out wildly. In the distant horizon behind them lightening silently blinks, illuminating blue clouds of crushed velvet. The street they are on is shadowy and quiet, the buildings older, under renovation. Construction equipment sits unmoving. The air continues to whoosh about and paper and discarded wrappers fly.

Sam sees that something happened to him in the walk through the alley. She can worry about how bad she feels after he let go of her hand or she can focus on winning him back.

Winning him back.

There it is. She wants him back in her life. Not so much as a lover, that would be wonderful, but she must have him as a friend. She has made a few in college, at the children's crisis center and working for Fat Johnny but those only served to highlight what she threw out of her life in order to date Satan's consigliere. For years Freddie Benson was The Nub, someone she mocked, belittled, tricked and abused that somehow when she wasn't looking had insinuated himself into the deepest parts of her. She smiles at the irony as her current feelings suddenly come into focus like the view through a telescope. Tonight Freddie's significance in her life shines so brilliantly she cannot look directly at it. Even though she still has ten thousand apologies left to make she has to know something.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asks.

He thinks of Ashley walking out of the restaurant, "Not currently," he answers. "How about you?"

"No, I like guys."

He laughs and he feels a sense of suddenly finding something precious that he had resigned to being lost. "Back there you said your guy didn't lie, what guy?"

She blinks, "Uhm, I was just talking chiz," _Truth tonight Puckett_. "I don't know what I was saying. I was just thinking if I was dating someone he'd tell the truth, some guy who does the right thing, I guess." She had been thinking of Freddie as her honest guy, and she had no business doing that. They were just… What were they?

"The right thing?" he chuckles. "Y'know how I got this eye?" he asks.

She shakes her head, "I figured you found some new girl who gave you everything I did, good lovin' incredible fun, a lethal right hook…"

He laughs, "Yep, a woman gave me this nasty eye."

She looks at him, her face says, "what?" although the words never leave her mouth. The wind swoops down from above with a jet engine sound. It is colder than it was just moments ago.

"I was doing the right thing," he makes air quotes with his fingers, "and the woman I was helping dropped me when she thought I was going to hurt the guy choking her."

Sam laughs at this.

"Good to know that my pain still brings a smile to your face," he says, laughing with her.

She stops, turns to face him and reaches up to touch his injured flesh. Her touch is tender and her fingers gently sooth the bruise. He cannot deny how this excites him; his eyes do the side-to-side movement she knows so well, like every move his face ever makes. Tenderness for her is hard, but she senses that opportunity is slipping away, a window is closing. The lonely wind whistles on pavement and around the corners of buildings. A distant siren cries as some emergency vehicle speeds somewhere.

They stand silently like that for longer than either can say. He does not understand where this moment is coming from, but he likes it. He likes it so much he says and does nothing to break it. She has wanted to touch him for so long. So much of her young life was spent hitting him because that was the only way she could think to have contact. The wind goes still as if to allow her to speak.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"For what?"

"That time Tee-Bo made you buy the big cup for our couple's smoothie."

His eyes go side to side again, they are doing that a lot tonight and it makes her smile, "Everything we've been through and that's what you are sorry about, really?"

"Yeah, you aren't cheap. You've always spent money on me. Back in the alley you mentioned you didn't know who you were with me. Well, when we first started being, 'Sam and Freddie: the couple' I didn't know who I was when I was with you, either. I was so nervous all the time—it made me a little crazy I guess."

"You were nervous to be with me? Why? We were friends before we ever dated."

A single horn honks breaking the quiet night open and a male voice shouts, "Fuck her!—I did!" and the car is gone with a rushing noise of motor, music and laughing air.

"You're right, those _iCarly _fans are everywhere," Freddie says.

She giggles and pulls away from him. Her sound is sweet, feminine. Something pulses inside both of them. She says, "Now we cut through the park."

They stand at the end of a concrete wall where an asphalt tongue intersects the sidewalk. The tar extends into a wooded space. Freddie is surprised that he didn't notice the trees earlier. Sam turns onto the winding black strip that takes them into a park. They are on it only a few feet before it dips along a grass embankment that descends into darkness. At the bottom are bushes and trees illuminated by towering poles of electric light. Overhead wind is thrashing the branches and leaves. Some kind of storm is coming.

He reminds her of where they left off, "I don't get it, we were friends, why would you be nervous with me?"

The sound of wind whipped branches complements the effort on her face, she loves being with him, but talking about them is so very hard sometimes. He makes her feel, go places that scare her and she hates to ever give fear any room. "I'd known you in one way since we were little. You were the kid I picked on. I knew how to do that, I was good at that. I wanted to be nice to you, but I didn't know how."

"How could you not know how to be nice to someone?"

She sighs; he can be so innocent some days. "I grew up in a place where you had to be hard. Nice and hard are like chocolate crumbles and dirt. You don't want to confuse the two."

His head nods, "What made you want to change? I mean, if what we had worked for you, and I continued to refuse to press charges?"

He is so funny in his Freddie way. She marvels how just talking with someone can make her so happy, then she answers, "It was like this, we hung out, did the show, got trapped by psychos, rebuilt bedrooms, saw Neville get his, I started feeling stuff around you, thinking things I'd thought before, but just ignored, then the thoughts and feelings got stronger, I knew I needed a new deal with you, something where I didn't have to be mean. It scared me. I tried to be nice, to be somebody I thought you could stand, maybe even like, then the night of the lock-in I just said, 'Screw this, I'm going for it.' Right after that I put myself in the nut farm, remember?"

"Yeah, that did wonders for my ego."

"But you came after me."

"To the hospital? Sure, Carly and I were worried…"

"No, **at** the hospital when I couldn't get out we recorded the show, remember? Carly was asking _iCarly_ fans what we should do. I mean, I thought I was nuts, you were the same Freddie, all nice and everything. I was totally panicked; I felt so alone, you had no reason to want to, I dunno, date me, or anything. Why would you even like me? My whole life I treated you like a punching bag. After I kissed you I ruined whatever we did have. You did something I never thought you would, you walked up and kissed me." The look on her face is a mix of puzzlement and pleasure.

"Yeah, I was so scared you were setting me up for a clown day on steroids-some big trick. But, well, the couple of the days after you kissed me, when you went missing. Something changed. You weren't just my mean friend any more. I, we, something was different." The look on his face is equally puzzled and pleased, but there is also something that suggests some tremendous personal achievement, like reaching the top of a mountain.

Their descent into the park brings them to a brightly lit tar path where their shadows stretch in black, funhouse mirror exaggerations of their real shapes. Freddie puts his hand up behind Sam's head to make crazy rabbit ears. She stops, gives him an "oh yeah?" glance then silently commands him to stop. From behind, without a word she molds his shadow by manipulating his body. Moving his arms, pressing him to squat, she makes his silhouette first a teapot short and stout and then merging her shadow with his, into a kind of two armed, four legged two-headed monster. From behind him she growls using her fingers to make Medusa hair for each of them. Then the bluster blows her long blond tresses forward, teasing his cheeks. He smells rain in the air and apple melon shampoo.

"I s'pose you just had to show me that you are the creative one?" he says turning to face her with mock outrage.

"Sorry Benson, you got a few brains, but you're no Sam Puckett."

"There's only one," he says a little wistfully, "Hey, if I'd kissed you back the night of the lock-in, instead of just standing there like a tree, what would you have done?'

"Punched you."

"Really?"

"I dunno, I was at my limit that night. What we were, what I felt, I was really confused. When I said 'sorry,' I meant it. I knew that I had just changed the game forever."

"I guess I can understand that. I liked you, but I figured there was a part of you that hated me," he tells her this as they walk down a grass bank toward a long, manmade stream bordered by rock slabs. The grade is steep and he puts out his hand to her. Her gut reaction is to reject it, she does not need help, but it is another chance to feel him on her. She takes his hand. She wonders whose grasp is sweatier.

"Yeah, I was so unsure of what I was feeling," she says, but with her clammy hand in his she is becoming very sure of what she is feeling right now. Her growing fear is with what he feels tonight. She hasn't been on many dates but even the guys that fear her make their desires clear. Not him. He is like no other she has ever known. He flirted with her back in the alley, or maybe he didn't. She really wants to phone Carly and ask an authority.

A feminine scream erupts from a fountain ahead of them, their heads jerk to see a couple wrestling, a boy and girl, high school age. It is instantly clear that both are laughing. The girl, skinny with unnatural fire engine red hair is being spun at the waist by the Asian boy with a buzz cut. She is shrieking as he tries to throw her in the pool at the base of the fountain.

"Gosh," Freddie says, "That brings back memories."

"How I used to grab you and throw you into…

"…Lots of things, I remember that bike messenger and getting my head banged on the hydrant. But hey, that was when you first thought I was kind of cute."

"I lied."

"Huh? When?"

"When I told you about when I first started liking you," they return to walking when the high schoolers start to stare at them. Both Sam and Freddie realize they are perceived as old and outsiders in some way.

"You mean I wasn't cute when I was bleeding out of my ear?"

"No, you're pretty much always cute. But what I said was a lie. I never told you, but the night of the Girl's Choice dance I saw you dancing alone with Carly, that's when I knew."

"Knew what?"

She rolls her eyes, "I dunno, that I cared about both of you but I didn't want you with her. I really had to figure that out. That made no sense. What did I care if the two of you were all ooshy gooshy?"

Gusts mist water from the fountain over them as the branches above groan and the light towers sway. He needs to tell her how angry he is with her for hurting him. He needs to share his rage at being dumped. He wants to put his arm around her and smell that apple-melon hair again.

They approach a collection of swings, slides, climbing bars and platforms. An assortment of young children are playing and shrieking in the artificial light, clambering up slides, hurling themselves off the structures and into the sand. Sam and Freddie slow and watch.

"Isn't it kind of late…" Freddie says.

Sam's head motion silently affirms his statement. They spot the mother simultaneously. Both halt.

"Check out the mom," Sam says.

"Wow. She looks like…"

"…Carly," Sam finishes for him,

"If Carly had 35 more pounds," he appends.

"And wore sausage casing work-out pants," she adds.

"Is she pregnant or just…"

"Don't know, but we should keep moving," Sam says, but both continue watching like some accident on the highway.

"How many kids is that?"

"Five," Freddie says, "Are they all hers?"

"She's our age," Sam notes.

"Different choices, I guess."

"Maybe she's just babysitting."

As if prompted by some director, several of the children shout, "Daddy!" at a man racing into the scene. He wears a hard hat and carries a lunch box; his clothes are soiled with tar and concrete. He runs heavily in work boots to the not-Carly and embraces her. The kiss is deeply passionate, and the children rush to the couple, clinging to and climbing them like new found playground equipment.

Both Sam and Freddie feel something profound, but neither is sure exactly what.

"You ever wonder what kind of guy Carls will end up with?" Sam asks.

"I used to pray it would be me, 'til you set me straight."

"You know why I did that, right?"

"Because I was exotic bacon."

"No, I mean, yeah, she wasn't into you like she needed to be for it to work, but, man, this is tough. The thought of the two of you as a couple…"

"Made you want to 'throw-up blood,' I believe was how you phrased it." The horizon becomes a pane of glass with a network of white neon cracks.

"The thought of the two of you as a couple made me jealous," she states plainly.

Not so distant thunder rumbles as he looks at her, "I can't believe we have never talked about this," he says.

"We were young, and very different."

"From each other?" he asks.

"No, from who we are now."

The wind blows coolly around them, with a rushing sound in their ears, the leaves wave under the park lights making strange shadows dance and flash like black fish swimming in the air.

Sam starts to walk, but her pace is that of someone in deep mud, "My mom used to bring Melanie and me to the park late after closing."

"My mom was always wiping down all the equipment with sanitary wipes, I was probably the only kid who begged not to go to the park." His arm starts out around her shoulder and he stops, feeling surprised at the depth of his reflex. She is caught in her memory and does not notice.

"My mom was meeting a dealer she didn't want knowing where we lived."

"You win this round," Freddie says, and his arm, halted in mid-reach, gives her shoulder an awkward tap. She gives him a "whatup with that?" face. Then some part of her recognizes what might have just occurred. The possibility makes her heart beat faster.

It is their old game of "Whose Mom is Craziest?" One of their early points of dispute when they started dating was comparing the outrageous behaviors of their single mothers. In order to survive the disagreements they made the opposing views into a game. Sam almost always won, but it was the least satisfying angle of "Mama always wins" that either could contemplate. Freddie could force a win if Sam laughed at his embarrassment or if his mother's behavior drove him to do something nerdy in response.

They stroll up to a small lagoon, the smell of stagnant water billows off the surface, a large, dead koi floats in foam on the edge.

"Hey, you wanna?" he jerks his head at a set of swings sitting in a pool of sand.

"Remember when we were little how I'd push you higher until you'd scream and bawl?" she asks.

"Yeah, every time you'd promise that you wouldn't do that, and I'd trust you and then you would do it."

"So, why did you always try again. Why didn't you quit?"

Tentacles of light undulate above them, but they are oblivious to the arrival of the storm.

"Because I wanted to trust you."

"Sorry I never delivered," she says with sadness. The idea of winning him back seems idiotic.

"Don't be sorry. Knowing you, figuring out how to deal with you, I have never had a relationship that mattered as much."

A deep rumbling followed by a cymbal clash sound—divine percussion- rings out above. She bites her lip and says something she is scared to have answered, "Freddie, what are we now?"

Back in the alley he had asked that very question but his voice had been drowned out by the argument they walked in on. Before them a few rings begin expanding on the dead lagoon surface.

"I was wondering that too. I meant what I said about missing you, y'know, back at the restaurant."

"Me too. A lotta times I wanted to talk to you but I, I never really felt I had the right," she admits.

"You can always call. I wanted to talk to you too. Stuff happened to me that I wanted to tell you about. Big moments for me that I shared with mom and Gib and Carly but…

"You say I could always call, but when I tried you were just polite and brief. And you never called me. Why?" The night sky flashes white briefly.

_Why? Is she serious?_

_It's_ _time_, he tells himself. _Try to be calm, _he thinks. Above them, a sound like sheet metal being pounded makes the air shudder.

He swallows. He has thought about this but he hasn't rehearsed it like his best presentations. It is so complicated he has never white boarded it, never tried to explode it into its component pieces.

He looks at her, the lightening illuminates him in a ghostly blue, she feels some bottom fall out her stomach when she sees his face as he says, "Why didn't I ever call you?"

He puts his hands on his hips and looks up as thunder pounds the sky. "Why didn't I call? You wanna know why?" He cannot stop it; a scalding rush of emotion that now tapped cannot be suppressed any longer.

She nods warily, bugs creeping around inside her.

"I was mad, Sam!" he barks this at her. A delivery so rare she cannot remember the last time, even with all of their argumentative exchanges. Something Big has opened as a few drops of rain begin to salt down on them.

"And I'm still mad! Why'd you do it? I get it, you left me for a great guy, so 'Mama wins!' but I felt dumped Sam! I understood it in my head, but it hurt! It hurt so bad inside." He taps his chest. "I thought we had something, something special, and it meant so much to me, when I found out you didn't feel the same anymore I, I felt sick, _I _wanted to throw-up blood! In fact, I don't know if you ever felt what I did."

"Freddie I…"

"Stop!" his voice is as mean and sharp as she has ever heard it, his handsome face is charged, his teeth clenched, the bruised eye seems to twitch, "It's coming out, NOW, Sam," his intensity curls off him in waves like some scorched meteor cratered in the ground. She feels the insistent drumming of water on her skin but pays no attention.

"So I walked around, limped around really. Missing you, feeling sorry for myself." He starts to pace, to move in a tight back and forth line. "It was just so unfair. I was, I just, I wanted you to be happy, wanted the best for you, I mean if you love somebody, and I love you-loved you-so much, then I wanted the best for you, but I missed you… and that's just selfish." He waves his hand dismissively.

He is agitated, oblivious to the shower that comes down. "So there I was hurting and feeling sorry for myself after we broke up and you wanted to be friends," he says the word contemptuously, like he just bit into something rotten, "I mean, that's what you wanted when you wrote to me, right?" He doesn't wait for a response, "I couldn't tell you what I was feeling, I wanted to scream at you and tell you how stupid you were, and that made no sense, because you made a smart choice," he holds up his hands, his head looking back and forth at each palm, "I was proud of you for making a choice," his right hand rises, "and I hated you for the way your choice made me feel," his left hand rises. "Which makes no sense! But it does make sense, because you hurt me but why would you do that? I tried so hard to never, ever hurt you. I didn't deserve what I got. I trusted you, Sam."

She winces as if slapped.

The storm envelopes them, rain pours, bolts light the sky and the night wind is wracked with godly rumbling. "The only thing I did wrong was be gone from us, but that wasn't wrong because I was gone **for** us, even though I never said that, it was true! All the choices I made came back to being with you."

The rain is relentless now, while the sky shines brightly, briefly, and a howling noise quickly follows.

"But you didn't ask, did you? You didn't wait, typical Sam, she's hungry she has to eat!" His head is down, the water flowing through his hair and he appears to be addressing the pavement for a moment.

"So of course, somebody found how incredible you are and you went with him, you didn't wait for us to get incredible again, even though I was doing stuff **for** us you just walked away. You should have waited Sam! You should have trusted me! I earned your trust Sam. I worked for it!"

Water plunges down as heavenly pipes open. The blackness above goes to daylight for just a blink, and like the storm that has found them Freddie presses on, "I never got a chance to make it right, but what I was doing wasn't about me, it was for us, but there wasn't an us, not really, because you found someone you liked better!" His finger stabs out at her, "I mean, it turns out you really didn't like me that much, you didn't care! All those years when you were hitting me, tricking me, mocking me—that was real!"

Thunder explodes across heaven in every direction, as thousands of little wet cannonballs crash down. "I mean, we slept together, that's supposed to mean something! No, we fell asleep lots before, we made love, Sam, that's what we did, we made love, not just screwed, we never screwed! So I think about it and think about it until my head finally says: 'maybe **we** didn't make love, maybe **I** just made love,' I dunno anymore! I don't know if you ever cared, if I ever meant anything to you!" He is stalking back and forth water hammering down on them, making countless ringlets in the small lagoon. Bolts of electricity spider web the night above and multiple explosions accompany the glorious lights.

Sam's jaw hangs low, moisture spills off her chin. His words are like nothing he has ever shared with her. This is not like him at all. He plans anything he does but this speech is clearly Freddie opening a direct line to some miserable, raw space inside himself. He has said things just now that shock her, hurt her, anger her, touch her. He has often produced an eruption of feelings in her, with various sensations wrestling for dominance, but she never suspected she could have a similar effect on him. He is emptying some terrible place inside him, some place she put him in. It is this thought that drags ragged fingers inside her temples. _I hurt him._

"Freddie I…"

"NO! I'm not done, Sam! You be quiet! You will hear this! You are going to hear me out before I leave!" The thunder rolls heavily, invisible giants kick the clouds.

"You broke my heart Sam! You treated me badly from day one, despite that, somehow, someway you made me be your friend. For years you hit me, tricked me, set me up to look like a fool and I took it! Then you made me love you! I don't know how you pulled that off Sam! Sure you're sexy, and smart and funny and strong, who wouldn't love you if they knew you, but making me love you and then deciding you didn't love me? That's just chiz Sam, just chiz!"

Lightning and thunder blaze and boom rapidly; leaves torn loose from trees whirl around them, branches crack and crash to the ground. "You have a right to live your life, Sam, you have a right to live it without me, but you had to know Sam, you can't do what you did to me and not have someone tell you about the mess you made! I'm cleaning up it Sam, that's my job, but you need to know!"

He is so deeply upset it frightens her; she is the angry one, not him. Rain bathes them in sheets, so neither can see the other's tears. She wants to grab him and hold him—calm him. She almost lunges at him, wraps him in her arms and presses herself into him. Once she would have hit him, hurled something at him as a way to express the intense reactions he creates in her. Tonight she does none of that. She stands watching him, remorsefully, blackly aware that she has caused this tempest they are in.

The sky goes white casting down almost angelic light for an instant, "It makes no sense, Sam! There's a reason for things, everything can be understood if you think about it long enough," he points his finger emphatically at the ground, "there are rules for everything!

The thunder slaps the ground hard and they feel it in the soles of their feet.

"Two plus two is always four! There are three sides to a triangle-rules! Rules for everything! You can't tell me anything that doesn't have to make sense! But not us! Rules never apply with you! You break all the rules and I can't organize it. I love how it makes me feel and think and I HATE it!" Light glows all around them before darkness pushes it back and closes them in again.

Water pummels, stings the flesh, blinds them so that the park is just a wet smear of grey if they were to look but neither does. She is locked onto him as the storm rages, he sees nothing but this moment of expression that waited so long for release.

"I always answered your messages, I was always nice, because that's what I do! Freddie Benson—Great Guy! But I never reached out to you because I was afraid! I was afraid of how I felt and you didn't deserve to see that! You were never gonna hurt me again. NEVER! That day in Troubled Waters I took a chance that you weren't just setting me up for some joke. You admitted it-I went after you. I took a chance and got played for a fool!"

Rain clatters onto the pavement, soaking them, the storm wails, flashing, booming, "You did it Sam, you pulled the best trick ever! You really got me good! Don't know how you are gonna top this one!"

She is shaking her head, her eyes burn, tears and rain blind her. "I know you didn't do it deliberately but that's how it feels Sam! I took a chance and I lost! I don't regret it Sam, I'd do it again, because it was worth it. Our time together was the best, Sam, the best!"

The air trembles, heavenly forces collide with divine violence, "I've never come close to what we had and I'm pretty sure I never will, and that's a hard way to get out of bed every day! The best part of my life is over because I wasn't good enough to keep Sam Puckett in my life!"

She can resist no longer. She rushes forward and wraps her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. She holds him tightly, and speaks into the wet expanse of his shirt, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry." The noise the rain makes is like billions of tiny glass beads clattering on stone.

Her grasp in this moment is much more than her unnatural physical strength. Her grasp is the completion of some formula. It does not make sense, but its rightness settles on him like a blanket. His arms slowly, tentatively close around her. The hold is easy, gentle and more than a little exhausted. She hears the thunder of his heart, smells his cologne, watches the water pour down the front of his shirt, feels warmth emanating off his skin, "Don't, don't," she repeats, "Don't you ever doubt. I'm so sorry. You deserve way better than me."

"Better than you?" he says into her drenched hair with a tone that suggests he had never considered the possibility. Finally holding her tonight the possibilities seem uncountable, his options limitless.

In response she squeezes him and listens to the sounds in his chest. Each of them closes their eyes oblivious to everything but this connection that both have needed for so long. They stand like that, clinging to each other as the torrent eases to a cool drizzle. The wind continues to blow but they remain together, fixed, eternal, like the figures in a necklace he gave her years ago.

**A/N**

**I continue to try new things with each chapter. If you are still with me drop me a line.** **The Long Walk Home (Part III: Her Place) is under construction.**


	12. Long Walk III: Sam's Place

**Thanks to all who read, alerted and favorited but especially the readers who commented on chapter eleven:**

**afanofanfic, Julefor, Movie Pal, Urias, jhuikmn08, deetrixjaay, TheWrtrInMe, dulscar, Tomboy22, S. Benson, Sparrows Dragonfly, cream tea anyone, Mary Rachel, bluejay63, aerolar1, arluna, tallymark18, irishfan62, mizkntuhke and rajonrondo12**

**As is my practice I've written to all of you that have such communication enabled.**

**A special thanks to Afanofanfic whose conversation enabled me to distill some of this down. The lyrics of Bruce Springsteen are used without permission like everything else in this place.**

**This one was written after I crash landed a space shuttle in the desert (thing flies like a brick). The latest agent of The Unspeakable was an astoundingly powerful opponent called Sha Gon. Most of the fight took place in a location outside the ability of English to describe in a meaningful way. This much I am proud to say: There will be a Christmas this year. I don't expect thanks, it's just what I do.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns **_**iCarly**_**. 17****th**** century Native Americans found the concept of ownership to be difficult to understand. How do you own land? It was here before you, it would be here after you. The idea of contracts was also foreign to them. Most lawyers (from any era) would make lousy 17****th**** century Native Americans.**

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><p><strong>Chapter twelve: The Long Walk Home Part III (Sam's Place)<strong>

Sam Puckett wishes she had her remote control. With her remote she changed the _iCarly_ world. Lights, sound, special effects, nothing was impossible. Now as she stares into a mirror she wants to push a button and change everything.

She stares into her mirror at a beehive turban/towel that contains her rain drenched hair. She imagines she has that old remote from _iCarly_, she presses a button and a video window opens, she sees the following conversation with Freddie Benson:

Sam: We need to talk about what you said tonight in the park.

Freddie: No.

She wrestles him to the ground, bending his arm until he agrees to talk.

"No, not an option," she whispers to the mirror.

She presses the imaginary button to open another window:

Sam: Can we talk about what you said in the park tonight?

Freddie: Princess, can we just make out like we used to? You have me so turned on (he lunges for her).

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen," she says, looking at what might be a zit by her nose. Should she pop it? Could she look less appealing? The face that looks back has no make-up. She studies the features and wonders distantly how much she will look like her mother.

Again she presses the imaginary button:

Sam: Freddie, please, I need to talk about what you said tonight.

Tonight. She presses her eyes closed so the mirror head is gone leaving only a wild swirl of terrible thoughts like some Biblical plague of horrible bugs raining down.

Tonight. He told her how he felt. How she made him feel when she dumped him. He said terrible things tonight, he said incredible things too, "Who wouldn't love you once they got to know you?" So many of his words echo like a tune she can't get out of her head. She has never seen him like that, she has seen him in the grip of passion, exuberance, frustration and disappointment, but tonight was something new. She shivers at the memory. How did she create such misery? Is it really her fault? Her stomach flips. This man never did a thing to hurt her and she destroyed him, or at least their relationship. She can tell herself that it wasn't her fault, but she knows it was more hers than anyone else's. She must own this.

Tonight. Did he say he was going to finish this before leaving? She doesn't want him to leave, but she understands totally why he would. She looks at the face and wonders why anyone would come back, certainly no one would stay. The bad voices come up like an army of demons charging over a hill. "Who could love you?" "Not your father," "No man," "Freddie pitied you," "James Ryan…" she stiffens at that memory. She gives the enemy her withering "Puckett stare" and they retreat back to that grim place in the depths of her mind. But they will return. They always return.

"He loves you" Gibby said. The words give her a moment of peace even joy, then she realizes she is clinging to the assurance of Gibby Gibson. The mirror head shakes slowly. She can't do that. She has to stand on her own.

Tonight, Freddie Benson hugged her in the rain and she felt a burned bridge coming together out of ashes, she felt like they were friends again. The boy who for years tolerated her abuse, endured her treatment and was incredibly able to say, "I love you," to her was coming back into her life. She couldn't explain it, but she felt it, like gravity she did not need to understand for it to be true.

They talked very little before they got to her apartment. She apologized many times, each said a few things but they exited the park and got here without too much discussion, hustling in the falling rain.

But the things he said. She needs to make this right, but how? The remote control would be sweet she thinks, press a button and change the scene, and what beams into her brain is clear and ironic. The remote control worked because of Freddie.

She looks around. The room is not badly cluttered. Considering it is her apartment that is saying volumes about how she is trying to change. For some time she has been pushing out the chaos and trying to live a more ordered life, she has been trying to make things right in so many ways.

She removes the towel from her head, and runs her hair through it. She strikes at it with a pick in long strokes. She remembers how Freddie used to brush her hair, how tender he was, how patient. So much more patient than she, he brought things to her life that she needed. How can she get that back? She does not deserve it, in the past she just took things she needed. She can't steal his affection, can she? Can she trick him into coming back?

She looks at the clothes she could put on, the tank top with short shorts that accentuate her goods, or the baggy, comfy sweats? Could she seduce him? Maybe, he is smart and strong, but he is still a guy, and even though she isn't some hot, Internet download she is pretty sure she could use her anatomy to get a man to do what she wanted. The thought of manipulating him like that feels like some wild animal biting her in the stomach.

She puts on the sweats. She understands manipulation very well these days. She will not trick her friend, if his choice is to stay if will be because of who she really is. If she is going to do this right, then losing is something she has to accept as a possibility.

_You will lose,_ hisses in her skull.

She finishes gathering herself together and plods across the small, bright living room then pounds on the bathroom door calling out, "Hey Benson, you bagged your junk yet?"

"I'm not opening the door Sam."

She smiles at the thought of what she will see when the door eventually opens, her Pear phone ready to take the picture.

"C'mon, it's not like I'm taking a picture or anything!"

There is silence, then the ancient, painted-over knob rattles. The door opens and she takes the picture.

His frustrated, she-has-tricked-me-again face is so familiar her heart seems to take flight inside her with joy, "Walking here you asked how you could earn my trust again," he reminds her.

"Yeah, but that was about serious stuff. This is funny stuff."

He nods, conceding another in an infinite string of losses, "let me see the picture."

The image that stares back is ridiculous. His hair is damp, a chaotic whirl of bed head and electric shock. Her clothing on him is too small. The grey pajama pants are stressed by his dimensions, warping the subtle pattern woven in the legs, the pink sweat shirt bears the faded words: "Feed Me" on the front. Some letters so far gone that without squinting the ghostly words read "F Me." Fortunately the sleeves are cut off or they would ride high. Both arms are marbled and very well defined. The waist crawls up to reveal hair and pale, contoured abs.

They fall together laughing.

"These are the pants you wore at Troubled Waters aren't they?" he asks.

She nods, it strikes her that he remembers what she wore so long ago.

He takes in her appearance since she changed clothes. Her unpainted face is so lovely he understands the honors English line about a thousand ships. Has any woman in sweats ever been so incredibly enticing? He imagines her cool white flesh under the grey material, and is suddenly frightened at the tension below his waist. He is wearing girl's pajama bottoms with no underwear. The potential for devastating embarrassment reaches new heights.

"Aww, you've put on a few pounds Fredulous. Your clothes are in the dryer. Let's head down and get a bite," she stares at the distinct vein in his naked right arm. His arms remind her of how Spencer tried to teach her to sketch anatomy using elliptical shapes. She takes in his entire appearance. Heat coils below her waist. Has anything so ridiculous ever turned her on like this before? It is like a metaphor for their entire relationship. It looks crazy but is bracingly real. Maybe the truest thing she will ever know.

He nods, "Lead the way. I guess I'm glad you didn't put me in those plaid shorts you used to favor when you were fifteen. So, anything else ahead to further emasculate me?"

"That would be hard to do with those guns, but you do look funny," both consider the exchange. She notes that he remembers shorts she wore as a teenager, what does that mean? He notes that she has just complimented him.

They squeeze, single file down a dim, narrow stairway, which appears to have been some afterthought of the builders.

"So how long have you lived here?" he asks.

"A few months. Johnny owns the building and it made sense when I was turning the shop around."

The bottom of the stairs presents two doors. One he recognizes as the way they came in. In the corner a washer-dryer combo sits. The dryer rumbles and clicks in the shadows.

"Uhm, my pants in there?" he asks.

Does he want to leave? She needs to get the conversation going. If he leaves when will they talk again? She has to fix things. "All, your clothes are in there. They should be dry soon. Don't worry, I won't take anymore pictures."

Photography is not his concern as he studies the tumble of damp hair falling down her back. He wants to brush that hair, and as the blood swells in the south, he exhales in a controlled breath, his hands casually coming together in front of him, while she uses keys to unlock the other door. They walk into a store room. "Gotta kill the alarm, wait here," she orders and hustles ahead turning on lights before vanishing deeper into the store.

He cannot sit with his hands pressing down the entire evening. He must solve this now. Always calm in a crisis, he looks around the store room for something that will suggest a solution to his situation. He sees a roll of duct tape.

"Forget it," he says aloud. Then he wobbles back on three legs toward the clanking dryer and opens the door of the appliance. The contents have barely ceased tumbling before he is sorting through the warm cloth. There is lots of her clothing, she must have done a load of her own laundry. He hurriedly pulls apart the mass of cottons looking for his shorts and slacks. He cannot believe he is working this hard to get _out_ of Sam Puckett's pants. He smiles at his own cleverness.

"Freddie?"

At the sound of her voice he lets out a loud, vaguely feminine, "Aaaa!" stands bolt upright, bangs his head on the lip of the dryer opening then looks back at her, his hands clutching a bra and underwear, hers and his. He watches his dignity get on a bus and wave good bye.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"I, uh, was checking on my pa..clothes." He does not turn fully toward her but looks almost painfully over his shoulder so his full profile is not revealed. "Can I get a minute here?" he asks.

"Sure," she says this and does a lingering walk back into the store room. _Great job Puckett. You dress him like a fool and wonder why he wants to leave. _She thought it would be funny, like all the things they did on the show. Maybe she was wrong about feeling the friendship return. "He loves you" she hears Gibby say from far, far away.

In the store room he joins her wearing his black slacks and her pink F Me sweat shirt. She gives him a questioning look.

"Shirt was still wet," he explains.

"So are the pants," she observes.

"No, not at all, that's the material."

She runs her hand on the damp pant leg. "Look, if you want to leave..."

"No!" he says too loudly, "I mean, I'm hungry. You wouldn't push a hungry friend out the door would you?"

She grasps for the word, "friend" like a lifeline.

He runs his hand over his head, his facial hair forming a handsome shadow in the bright light. He is so cute and hot she can barely think straight. She should have worn her short-shorts. She needs her best moves now.

"C'mon," she says.

The smells from the coffee shop enclose them as they walk in, a rich combination of baked bread, pastry and sandwich meat all kneeling in acknowledgement to the smell of coffee beans. It is enticing and Freddie's stomach rumbles.

"This is your shop?" he asks.

"No, it's Johnny's but I run it."

"Pretty well to hear Spencer talk."

"Yeah, it makes money now. Normally It'd be open but I had no staffing tonight, or I would have had to miss the dinner."

He realizes that she closed her successful store for a night to be with him. Then again, Sam would close her successful store for a great meal, too, or because Carly demanded it. Does he really care what she feels about him anymore?

_**Hell yes. **_The answer surprises him in its intensity.

She briefly but with substantial pride tours him through the shop space. He feels delight watching her. She is so professional and accomplished, so confident and informed as she explains her choices and the victories and losses that ensued. It is one of the sweetest moments he has had with her. She invites him to a seat at the counter. What he suddenly feels is incredibly powerful. What he wants most is to kiss her. He shifts uncomfortably on the stool. He can't be distracted by sex. He said his piece, now he needs to respect her and the life she is building. He starts thinking about writing code, bad computer code. Nothing is less sexy than bad computer code.

"I'm gonna fix us something new I'm chalking this month."

"Chalking?" he starts to ask, then notices that on the walls around them the menu is written in colored chalk on blackboards. He almost asks about chalk dust in a food prep area and dials his logical mind to a low, single digit setting. He can see the pride in her actions, there may be a trace of trying to impress him but she is deeply invested in this space, which would be obvious even to someone who did not know her as he knows her. He must not dampen the excitement she feels in her life.

"I'm making something I think is gonna be popular, I call them Samwiches. Combinations that I like, wadda ya think?"

"You're definitely the creative one. Y'know, you could replace these chalk boards with displays, and you should be able to shut off your alarm and set it with your Pear phone. There should be an API that would allow a secure socket TCP/IP connection to…"

She is staring at him with her bored face, eyebrow cocked, sucking loudly on her teeth.

"Sorry, my _Tech Time with Freddie_ still flares up now and then," he says.

The grin on her face glows so much he feels he could warm his hands over it, "I really have missed you," she says. "You still a Peppy Cola man?"

"Uh, more green tea these days."

"Hey, we're a coffee house you better believe we got that. Hot or cold?"

"Hot."

_Hot_. Each of them thinks watching the other.

She serves him a cup of hot tea then busies herself pulling out trays of food from various refrigerators and cabinets. He sees the substantial volume of food she is prepping but says nothing as he remembers she is planning on eating too. He watches her hands work the knife with fantastic, even frightening speed and accuracy. It reminds him of a restaurant where the food was prepared as a kind of show.

"When did you get so good with a knife?"

She freezes, the thought of so many meals prepared as James Ryan stood behind her, guiding her hands, showing her how to slice and dice, he would kiss her neck…

She jumps back, the knife clattering down to the floor.

"Sam! Did you cut yourself?" Freddie is off the stool his hand over the counter, touching her.

She is pale, her breathing rapid.

"Sam, let me see your hand," his voice a cocktail of commanding and caring as he pulls her into a turn.

"It's cool," she says, extending her gloved, uncut hands as proof.

Relief plays across his face, "So, what happened…"

What happened? How does she explain that the worst decision of her life, the one that opened him up like a fish on a deck also rammed a boogey man into her brain that pops out of the closet to scare her at odd moments?

"Random dancing, coffee house style," she explains doing a brief, lame jig. She offers nothing in addition but silence. He smiles and slowly goes back to his stool at the counter.

"So, whattup with the ham earring?" she asks. She knows she should be asking about the things he said, she must get to that.

"That's a long story."

"I've got time."

"It's also a story I don't want to tell," he says smiling and she doesn't know how to take that. He has never refused to share anything with her, this is new.

She returns to cutting and organizing two plates of food, heaping plates of food. "So, I wanna talk about some of the things you said back in the park." she says. For her, the words crash to the ground like dishes shattering.

Whatever anatomy supports his intestines closes into a fist, squeezing his belly. He said some things back in the park that were true but talking about them isn't attractive.

"Uh, yeah, I guess, I maybe said some things…"

She cuts him off, "Do not apologize."

_How did she know that was coming? _"What?"

"You are getting ready to say you are sorry, and you just better not."

"Well, I was mad."

She looks at him, her eyes alive and hopeful. Can you kiss someone's eyes? He wonders. Can eyes kiss back? He shifts on the stool. Even in his own pants he can't afford to get distracted. She is his friend, he needs to treat her like one.

"Yeah buddy, I thought I was watching the God of Thunder. The storm helped the drama."

"Well, I might have been out of line…"

"Don't do it." She levels the knife at him, and he eyes it cautiously.

"Uhh…" he utters, watching the knife, "Don't do what?"

"You are getting ready to apologize for what you said, right?"

"Well, I said what I felt, but I should have..."

"Freddie, I had it coming."

"Sam, I could have put it better. Listen, I can't explain where all we've been, but for years you really were my closest friend. I'm sorry for not being man enough to shift our relationship when you needed it."

She stops arranging meat on bread and looks at him, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"Freddie, that's insane. I dumped you."

"Yeah, but you were just looking out for yourself, trying to make a better relationship."

"Do you really think that's how you should look at it?"

"Well…"

"What are you, the nerd Jesus? You should want to put your foot in my butt! You got it right back in the park, what we had was the best relationship I ever had too. We had it all baby and I set it on fire and walked away. You should be mad. You have every right to be."

"No, I mean, it made me, it made me, well I was so proud that you made a choice, that you saw something you wanted and you went after it, but the choice you made, I never thought it wouldn't include me. That's pretty dumb I guess."

"It wasn't dumb, I never gave you any reason to think I was looking elsewhere. I can understand hating me."

He shakes his head, "I could never hate you, but I, well, that's why I never got in touch with you. I, I, don't know what I thought I was doing, but I really wanted you to hurt like you hurt me."

She nods at him waiting for more, "Go on, I have it coming. Yes, I was stupid and selfish and paranoid, a head case who should be arrested because the way I treated you was criminal."

"You aren't any of those things, and I never want you to be arrested, uhm—again. I shouldn't have been a jerk."

"Freddie, you're human. You're not that emotionless, logical guy from _Star Trap."_

"Dr. Stork has emotions he just sublimates them in favor of logical alternatives," he explains.

She ignores his explanation, "You don't know how to be mad at someone do you?"

"Huh?"

"I was a stupid bitch, Freddie. I have done a lot of bad things in my life, and a lot of them I'd do again, but hurting you. I'd let someone take my left arm," she drops her arm on the counter and makes a slashing motion.

At the thought of harm coming to her, something inside him revolts, "No!" His hands close on her arm. She looks at his hands holding her, he looks as well.

He withdraws his hands, "Sorry about that."

She wants to kiss him, she wants him to kiss her. Neither happens.

"I'm sorry for how I acted, the night we broke up," he says.

"For what? You were a perfect guy that night, you don't have anything to be sorry for."

"No, I'm sorry I let you go. You need a fighter in your love life, not some daffodil who folds when you meet some great guy."

"STOP!"

Her reaction is loud, harsh, sharp enough to draw blood.

"Sam?" he asks.

She needs to explain James Ryan, but not tonight. Tonight she focuses on Freddie—her friend, Freddie. "Just don't call him a 'great guy' K?"

"No problem."

"So you think you should have stayed and fought?" she asks, composing herself.

"I shouldn't have run away."

"That's nuts. I gave you your papers and told you to move on."

"So? I wasn't ready to go, but I let you tell me what to do. I shouldn't have done that."

She says, "Look, I can't take back what I did to you, to us, but please hear this: I. Am. Sorry. I'm sorry for that and for a lot of things I did. Like, I never said I was sorry about the NERD Camp application, either."

"NERD Camp? You said you were sorry, remember? Carly compared you to a monkey," he chuckles at the memory. "Besides I take those things too seri—

She cuts him off again as if she needs to finish while the idea is fresh. "I do some pretty crazy things sometimes. I didn't do it to be mean, well, yeah that was part of if, but the real reason, and this is pretty nuts, I wanted you around that summer. A lot of the things I did to you back then were really messed up."

_Back then? _ He thinks, touching the left side of his face as he remembers flying backwards in the hall of Bushwell Plaza, but he doesn't mention it. She is expressing something that is hard and he got his say back in the park. But he has to ask, "Why'd you lie about stuff? Like when you first started liking me."

"It's what I do—did, I mean. Lying is easier than the truth. Or it starts that way. You grow up in my family lying is just a faster way to get what you need. You and Carly were like the first decent people to be my friends. It's hard being friends with people with moral standards. So when we started dating, wow. Dating you was like nothing I'd ever done before. I, I, wasn't ready to be with you in some ways."

His head makes an agreeing motion as he adjusts his butt on the stool, "Yeah, I can relate, when you took me to prison to meet your uncle Carmine, whoa, I really felt like I was in over my head. He never did stab me by the way."

She is laughing, "That really makes me happy."

"That he didn't stab me?"

"No, the thought of you with those hams in your pants. I wish I had a picture of that."

Her laugh, he has heard it so often tonight and each time it seems to draw him closer, the hurt and resentment are gone from him now. "That visit and train club led to our first serious break-up" he says.

"But not our last," She replies, putting out plates of food.

The meal she has prepared is superb, small salads with fruits, cheese crumbles and nuts, meat "Samwiches" on exotic bread with savory relishes.

"Mmmh," Freddie moans, biting into his Samwich. Sauces and juices run over his fingers and she wants very badly to lick them clean. Food and Freddie, she had forgotten how the two F's led to the third.

"Sam, you are gonna make a fortune. Man, if breaking-up made you able to fix great food it might have been worth it"

"No. Nothing is worth that." Those words hang in the air until she says, "Look, I need to talk more about what you said tonight."

He sighs but says nothing.

"You said everything has a reason, everything can be explained except us."

"Yeah, sometimes I feel that way."

"I don't know if everything is supposed to make sense. Growing up I know my mom drank and slept around, probably as a way to numb herself. But why did she do that when she had kids? I mean, what I'm saying is, I get the small why, I don't get the big Why."

He nods.

"Here's the thing, I, sometimes I feel like, uhm, like you and me are, are supposed to be-."

"Together? Yeah, I get that. That's what made your leaving so hard. I felt like I lost part of myself, something that I needed, that was supposed to be-mine. I finally understood why you read about old couples where one dies and the other goes a few months later."

"The fact that they're both real old may be part of it," she says making that smart face of hers.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. So when you said that the best part of your life was over because you weren't good enough for me, did you mean that?"

"When you first left, yeah, I felt that way, but eventually I got better, after a while I even sort of thought of you as the loser." He winks at her.

"I'm glad. You are a great guy. I've never said that to you, have I? Well, you are, and I'm better because I know you."

"Same here, even if the relationship" he makes air quotes, "didn't work out, I wouldn't be who I am without you and the choices you helped me make."

Freddie, you said you were proud that I made a choice."

"Yeah, I was, I mean I am. I've watched you work really hard to not be Pam Puckett, to break away. I think a lot of people with your background would be, well, screwed."

"I made a wrong choice that night."

"When you destroyed me, set my world on fire, poured acid on…"

"Freddie, I'm serious, I should not have chosen to go with…him.

"Sam, you didn't set out to make a wrong choice. Nobody does. I was proud of you. I know that's sounds dumb, but I've always wanted the best for you, even if it turned out not to be me. So, what happened between you and Professor Ryan?"

_Not tonight. James Ryan cannot have tonight. Tonight is about Freddie. _She says only:

"James Ryan is a bad, bad guy," She has never said that aloud before. She does not anticipate the resulting chain reaction. Her lower lip trembles as she says it, and brief images of horror blink like fireflies in her memory. Something sweeps over this powerful woman that scares Freddie it is so obvious.

Unbidden, Freddie comes around the counter and puts his muscular, bare arms around her. "Hey," he says, stroking her hair, she is shaking. He needs no explanation, but whatever creates this reaction in her makes a storm howl inside him. His ears glow head with fury. He holds her until she steadies and then he raises her chin with his finger, "You wanna talk about it?" he asks.

She takes a breath, "Someday, yes. Not tonight." She feels the hate for James Ryan seething like a surf pounding rocks inside her. She shakes off her reaction; she needs to bring the focus back to them.

"What was on the video?" she asks.

"What video?" he says, not wanting to let her go, but does so reluctantly, sensing that he has no business maintaining his hold. He walks back around the counter.

"On the PearPhone you gave me the night…"

"You dumped me? Stuck a hot fork in my heart?" he says it jokingly.

"Yeah, I promise I'm gonna find some way to make that right."

"It was a tour video I made. Like the one I sent you when I was at DingoWorld. Do you have any idea what it was like to be at DingoWorld without you?"

"It wasn't fun without me?" she asks, almost shyly.

"Are you kidding? It was great! I mean, it's DingoWorld, the rides, the food, and the women, wow, who knew so many babes hung out at a theme park…"

Her eyes widen, her mouth hangs open and then she sees his grin.

"Gotcha!" he says.

She sucks in her lower lip. He saw where she was at and he pulled her back. "Be set for payback, dishrag," she warns, but the happiness inside her spills out onto her beaming face.

"Yeah, being at DingoWorld, being in Europe, being anywhere without you back then was so hard. I knew you were slipping away, I could feel it when we'd video chat. So I had to do something. I couldn't live like that anymore."

"So, what was on the video?"

He looks a little reserved, but he tells himself that it was years ago that it's in that same historical place as the assassination of Lincoln.

"It was a tour of an apartment. I was asking you to move in with me."

She blinks. She is excited but that reaction makes no sense. If he had said, "I was going to give you a million dollars" but nothing came of it, why be thrilled?

"And what happened to the video?" she asks.

"Well, I couldn't have you see it, it would be too weird. I remoted into your phone and deleted it."

"You remoted into my phone?" Her voice is shocked.

He withdraws slightly at her tone, "Sure, I set it up."

"You broke into my phone?" her anger building.

"No, I used a utility I had intended to support the phone with," he shifts in his seat. Sam Puckett who prefers picking locks to using keys is upset?

She is clearly seething, her lips curled into a tight frown.

"Sam, I would never violate…" he begins a profound, sincere apology, his hands in a pleading formation. Then he sees the smile. "You're pulling my peach, aren't you?" he says.

Her head bobs and the smile on her face is generating voltage, "Payback," she gloats, but her tone is so sexy and delicious he imagines her lips forming a slow, luxuriant kiss. He shakes his head like an Etch a Sketch to clear the picture.

"Ya got a mean streak in you, Puckett."

"When did you figure that out?"

"Grade school recess."

They continue to eat and she brings two slices of pie from a cooler.

With one bite he lifts his head and looks at her his eyes glowing with the light of the first day of creation, "This is a Galini."

"Yep," she says.

He raises his cup of tea and bounces it against her Wahoo Punch bottle, "To Sam Puckett who will make the Seattle coffee scene her own." He looks into eyes of sky blue and he has to ask,

"That first time we broke-up, how long did we make-out?"

"Long enough that we almost didn't break-up. Getting back together was always my favorite part of the fights and break-ups."

"Why did we break-up that first time?" he asks.

"Something to do with Carly's ideas of how couples are supposed to behave. We were trying to force a connection or something."

"We broke up because we didn't fit Carly's definition of a good couple," he shakes his head.

"Yeah, that's pretty jank."

"We depended too much on her."

"Ya think?" She says.

"That night you said, 'we just didn't click in that way'"

"I also thought the Nile was in Utah."

"You _said _it, you never thought it. Why do you hide how smart you are?"

She looks at him, considers actually trying to convince him that she is, what, dumb?

"What makes you think I'm smart?"

"Well, aside from speaking Italian, dancing like a pro, rapping like a gangsta, ad libbing like a professional comic, understanding _The Penny Treasure_, and turning a failing business around, I've watched you over the years. You are one of the smartest people I've ever met. I'm guessing that you fake ignorance to manipulate people."

The color goes out of her face at the thought of manipulation. James Ryan's head rises with a cobra hood in her memory. He had discussed manipulation with her while he subtly bumped and nudged her thinking into whatever direction he selected.

"Sam? What's wrong?"

"Uh, nothing."

He watches her, struck by these mini spells she seems to have, "So, that night, when you said, 'I love you too,' did you mean it?" he asks.

"Absolutely, and it took me by surprise."

"Huh?"

"Benson, we had just agreed to break-up, so saying I love you/good-bye was just too weird."

"It wasn't good-bye. We saw each other every day."

She nods, "I know, we actually were together more, we became friends, normal friends. We hung out, worked together. I was able to stop hitting you. It felt different, like a stage we had to go through.

Her blue eyes wash over him, "That first break-up was the start of something wonderful."

"Yeah," he says. "That was the first time we said, 'I love you' to each other."

"You said it first," she says, "Scared me so bad I almost threw up."

"I have that effect on women."

She laughs then says, "I'm serious. Do you know how many people in my life said they loved me?"

He shakes his head.

"Melanie and my mom," even Carly never said that. I figured I was never going to hear it from a guy, at least not a good guy."

He cannot believe what she just said, "Sam, you are incredible. I'm surprised you aren't dating a bunch of guys."

"Careful, sounds like a compliment," she isn't certain why she says it, but she wants so much to feel like she used to. _"He loves you"_ Gibby said.

"Hey, you and I might be, uh, whatever we are, but you have it goin' on."

"Whatever."

"I'm serious," and he remembers something from their time together. Sam never felt very beautiful. She could look in the mirror and see only bad.

He comes around the counter, pointing to the refrigerator window that dimly reflects both of them. "Check her out," he has his hand on her shoulder while his free hand waves toward the phantom Sam and Freddie in the glass, "An angel face out of some dream," his fingers comb her hair and drape it over her sweat shirt, "golden curls spilling over perfect, graceful shoulders, and below that, well cover the children's ears because no man can talk about that wonderful part of her and not risk crossing the line. But that's just the glorious exterior, boys. Take the time to get to know her fellas. Attached to her core of inner steel are brains so sharp you can cut yourself. The only thing sharper is her wit. She's wicked strong, smart, funny and beautiful, the only question you should ask yourself is, 'Are you man enough to be with her?'"

Her cheeks turn the color of flame, then she faces him with her eyebrow raised, "How long did you rehearse that?"

"Years."

"How many ladies have you used it on?"

He shakes his head, "That one is yours, you are one of a kind, princess—glad I finally got to use it," he steps back to his seat.

She does not want him to walk away, this feels familiar, wonderful. In the past when the demon voices came over the hill in her head he would step in to show her that those voices lied. She remembers how another used those voices and she slams that door hard. Not now, not here.

"You called me princess," she says.

"Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to overstep."

She feels that lock-in sensation, the same powerful hands that shoved her into kissing him that night are on her now, but she braces herself against the counter then returns to the food.

"You said 'whatever we are now,' so, are we cool again?"

He nods, "Yeah."

"Are we friends again?"

"Absolutely."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"I don't know, we talk again, I guess."

"You don't live here anymore, so we won't be hanging out, going to movies, watching videos."

"No, I guess not."

Silence expands around them like those old films of atomic mushroom clouds.

"Kinda weird," she says. "We break up years ago and become friends and hang out. Now we agree to be friends but we won't hang out."

"Yeah, but hey, I'll be back to visit my mom and you and Carly."

She nods in silence.

"Freddie, are we going to talk again, after tonight I mean?"

He has not thought about after tonight, not really. "Well, I've, I mean…"

"I'd like to maybe hang out with you again, really catch-up," both are stunned that strong Sam Puckett is talking so candidly.

"Sure, we can do that. Maybe you can come visit sometime," he says it, but neither think it will happen. They are separate people.

Hey, can I give you a hand with clean-up?" he asks awkwardly.

"Sure," she says, but the message is clear: He is leaving and whatever friend means, it will not be the same.

He helps her clear the dishes and get the clean-up underway. They do this in a very clumsy, uncomfortable manner. What he says next seems inevitable.

"It's pretty late—I should get back."

That is the last thing she wanted to hear, but she knew it would come. While she hoped for more, some magical return to the way things used to be, Sam Puckett has always lived in the real, hard world.

"Dinner, the fight, the talk, I won't forget this night, not ever," a vast crack is opening between them. Both see it and neither says a word.

"C'mon, let's get your shirt," and she leads him back, there is one thing she needs to tell him.

She looks at him, "Freddie?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," he says, but no kiss follows, just a smile, like she has seen Spencer give Carly so many times. A brotherly face, the reaction it creates in her is the very definition of bittersweet. What did she expect? No, she got exactly what she expected. If dreams came true—wouldn't that be nice?

As he peels off the tiny pink sweat shirt she notices the various bruises on his torso. It reminds her that there is one question she failed to ask tonight, "So, where did you learn to fight?"

"I learned from you," he says buttoning his wrinkled purple shirt.

"You learned how to take a punch maybe, but what I saw tonight at the restaurant did not come from me."

He nods, "When you and I were dating I got tired of having you defend me. I started with just getting fit, but eventually I started sparring. It's a lot like fencing, I have some natural talent at it."

"What I saw tonight was a pretty experienced fighter. You told Baldimore, 'I do this every day.'"

"Yeah, I started working as a doorman in bars,"

She stops and looks at him, her face a delineation of unbelief, "you were a bouncer?"

"Still am. I'm pretty good at it."

"You're like, 5' 9" 5' 10."

He looks at her with a mixture of mock and real outrage, "Petite Princess Puckett, the terror of Ridgeway High needs me to explain that size doesn't matter?"

"I'm not talking about sex."

They look straight at each other without the slightest blink. They both know what he meant, but neither of them is sure of what she meant.

"I was just joking," she says, her face going crimson.

"So size does matter?" he says and he winks at her with his right eye. The left eye is almost normal looking, as if some miracle healing took place.

"You think you could take me?" she asks.

He makes a thoughtful face, "If I remember all those, 'oh God Freddie' moments I've already done that…" He watches the blush consume her face in a scarlet plume.

"In a fight, nerdlinger," her gaze narrows into a sexy glare.

"Well…"

"Getouttahere! You will never be that tough."

"Look, sister, you may have some East Compton _chollos_ talking '_Diabla_' but this is Freddie, 'The Truth' Benson, I walk the walk when I talk the talk," he does a playful shuffle against an invisible opponent.

She is giggling, her lips curling into a smile that he feels in his front pocket, "Freddie 'the Truth' Benson?"

"What?" he says, the smile equally bright and wild on his face.

She stops and turns to face him, "Right here Benson, right now," she points at the floor with one hand and she makes a muscle with her arm. It is playful and infectious. Under the fluorescent glow of the restaurant light she is magically beautiful. He knows there is no light on Earth in which she is anything less.

He returns to the silly shuffle, "Oh no, you don't want any of this, Puckett," he does a wildly exaggerated shadow box.

Her hand flips out and gives him a gentle but fast slap on the shoulder.

He freezes, looks down at his shoulder and that eyebrow goes up.

Something rolls across her features and he remembers hours and hours of staring through the viewfinder at that face.

"You just opened a family size can of Whoop Ass." His hand flicks out and swats her long golden hair so that it whips behind her. They begin to circle each other, each of them jabbing, never connecting, or connecting only lightly, but moving with impressive speed.

"You got something going on princess," he says rotating to his left.

She compensates for this move, staying perfectly in front of him, "You're okay, Benson, for a Pear Power Ranger."

"Oh, dropped your left, Puckett," he says his hand flashing out to encounter her block.

"Just got bored waiting on 'The Truth.' Wake me when you unpack that can of Whoop Ass."

They continue to circle, each waiting for an opening.

He has studied her fighting, prepared for this moment in his head, although he never, ever thought they would go _mano_ a Puckett for real, but that is how his mind works, he prepares for situations that might never occur so that when they do, he is ready. He knows she will try to grab him and wrestle him to the ground, that is her style. He is ready.

As his hand comes toward her in a grazing slap she catches it, in order to hold his arm and take him gently to the ground, but she is startled when her wrist is clamped by his hand. His grip is gentle but there is no questioning the power there. She feels heat across her skin, an excitement she recognizes even welcomes, she steps in to trip him and finds her other arm caught in a very safe but firm grasp. They are finally holding hands. His right hand in her left, and her right in his left. It looks like Ring Around the Rosy. They are smiling, staring into each other's eyes. She kicks her foot out to trip him but he moves his legs out. They turn, to the left, then to the right, always looking directly into each other's eyes. Neither can gain the advantage, neither gives any ground.

He is not surprised by her strength, his logical fighter's mind knows the thumb has no strength and the grip can be broken with almost no effort, but his logical mind has been abandoned on the side of some distant road. Logic is no longer driving this bus. He rejoices that there is no meanness in her, only a playfulness that makes his heart pound and his mind think wildly illogical thoughts. He looks into her perfect blue gaze; he is completely captivated by a face he can see anytime he closes his eyes.

He stretches her arms out straight out and their hands change into a kind of prayer grip. Their arms go out straight so they form a –T- shape. They are pressed together now, chest to chest, slowly revolving. He is somewhat taller than her and so he is looking down at her freshly rain showered face. There is no make-up, no hint of artifice. She is just pure, uncut Sam. He has stared at the face more hours than he can count, edited it, studied it, adored it. With all the talking and food her breath should be able to derail a train, but it is like a newborn's, sweet and clean. He feels that he is holding something precious, something that he knows can never be imitated or replaced.

She loves the smell of him. A musky mix of faded cologne, sweat, protein and rain, she studies the mysterious ham earring, the carefully trimmed facial hair, the shadow of stubble. The bruise around his left eye is almost gone, which seems odd because earlier tonight it was prominent and angry. His eyes are chocolate brown, friendly, trustworthy eyes that always keep their promises, chocolate eyes where she can close her own in total safety. She has missed those eyes more than she has words to express. She knows that this man has always been her friend. Are they continuing to spin or is it the room?

The official history of Sam and Freddie kisses goes like this: Their first kiss was an exploration, two young people conquering fear with "frenemie" help, two young people experimenting.

Their second kiss was entirely driven by her, a reaching out for change, a brave admission of possibly unreciprocated attraction.

Their third kiss was initiated by him; it was his way of acknowledging attraction, of completing a circle and the next step in a very complicated evolution.

Many kisses followed those three. Far too many to count, then the Apuckettlypse crashed down on them and the kissing stopped.

This kiss, this night, no one will ever be able to say who initiated it. It starts as a gentle brushing of lips, maybe accidental, but the only word that describes what happens at those tentative touches is ignition. The contact escalates from spark to inferno, neither party can be considered the aggressor; the passion is mutual, fierce, even desperate. It is two people meeting in the same place of need, a hungry coupling of two kept apart by foolishness. This connection has been denied for far too long for far too many pointless reasons. Neither can believe it is happening and neither can resist the incredible pull toward the other they have lived with almost all their lives. Both of them let go of fear, and doubt, sadness and pain. For just an instant they are simply together, better than they could ever be apart.

If his mother saw them just now she would gasp and exclaim that they were trying to swallow each other. Neither would really dispute it. There is an adult hunger here; a desire to join and complete that is both sexual and transcendently human.

They paw each other in a perfect blend of passion and deep, shared affection. It is incongruently savage and tender, a perfect representation of them, opposites meeting and discovering breathtaking similarity. They crash and thrash, moan, gasp and giggle, tumbling to the floor. Here are the last things we hear them say:

"Here?" he asks.

She shakes her head, gives his lips a tigerish bite and jerks her eyes to the ceiling, "upstairs."

He sweeps her up and carries her to the back steps. The stairway is insanely narrow, even frightening. "Maybe you should put me down and we go up separately," she says never taking her eyes from his.

"Huh uh, I let you go once when you said we had to separate, I'm not doing that again." Another mutual kiss ensues, they meet each other halfway.

His grip on her is firmly loving, dependable and charged, it is unclear whose heart is slamming harder. She hugs her best friend in all the world electrically aware that sometimes dreams do come true; the demon armies that drag her down quieted in the presence of something vastly more powerful, something with a capacity for miracles.

And Sam and Freddie squeeze, strain, bump, curse, kiss and laugh the steep, intimidating climb to the next level.

Together.

* * *

><p><em>Sometimes it might seem like it was planned<br>For you to roam empty hearted through this land  
>Though the world turns you hard and cold<em>

_There's one thing mister, that I know  
>That's if you think your heart is stone<br>And that you're rough enough to whip this world alone  
>Alone buddy there ain't no peace of mind<br>That's why I'll keep searching till I find _

_My special one_

_Two hearts are better than one_

_ -Bruce Springsteen_

**A/N**

**What's next? There are unresolved issues, James Ryan is still out there on the prowl, Sam has a lot of work to do to earn Freddie's trust, and whatup with the ham earring story? Still, I'm gonna take a rest at this point to turn my energies to another couple of stories. This isn't done, but it is on hiatus while I ponder.**

**For those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you have a great holiday. For those who don't, I hope it's a rockin' week.**

**Let me know your thoughts if you have a minute.**


	13. The Morning After the Dilly Doo

**As far as chapter 12 is concerned, special mention to reviewers:**

**afanofanfic, Julefor, Movie Pal, Urias, jhuikmn08, deetrixjaay, mizkntuhke rajonrondo12, Lackadaisical Pajamas, , pigwiz, pirate in disguise, Random Storygirl, ketbelle, loerndoer, 01110011100001111, Mike2102.**

**Hey, I'm back. **

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly, blah, blah, blah.**

**iApuckettlypse**

**Chapter 13: The Morning After the Dilly Doo**

Freddie Benson was pretending to be asleep. He knew that if he opened his eyes Sam would be there.

And he wasn't ready for that.

He didn't want to wake up and face Sam. He was afraid. With his eyes pressed shut he took in his surroundings. He heard traffic outside coming from a window, from that window he felt a humid breeze blow across his bare flesh. He smelled the sheets and bunched a pillow between his fingers. He didn't dare open his eyes to see where she might be, didn't dare engage her.

And he didn't want to leave, either, though he wasn't sure why. Usually, after doing it with partners who weren't Sam he wanted some sort of retreat, to be by himself. More than once he had simply slipped out of bed and called later to talk. Even after he and Ashley had been dating he would do that, to get some space, some alone time. But he couldn't bear the thought of being alone, not this morning. It seemed he had crossed over to some new place but he did not understand the location at all.

Then he felt it, her, she, Sam Puckett moved, the futon groaned, an ancient timber noise and he kept his eyes shut. Should he fake a snore? No, go easy, don't push it. He was asking himself, _What did I do?_

He should have been upset that he slept with his ex-girlfriend. It wasn't gentlemanly. It was cliché, it was weak, it wasn't The Right Thing. They were supposed to settle the bad blood between them, maybe shake hands and agree to lunch or something then go their separate ways. His mother's voice, a buried but never distant companion told him in slow, shrill tones how disappointed she was in his choice. She no longer called Sam, "That gutter girl," but with his eyes closed he heard his mother's power tool "correcting voice" telling him he should have done better. With his eyes closed he knew Sam was there, in the futon bed creaking like some old sailing ship with any move either of them made. Had he really chosen to sleep with her or was it just fate? Was Sam Puckett his destiny? He thought about it, about last night.

Last night. After a long walk steeped in deep-dive conversation they play wrestled into a kiss. He remembered carrying her up narrow stairs, his heart surging in his chest, the two of them pawed each other naked and into this creaky folding couch bed of hers.

The walk. He had forgotten the affect she had on him, watching her move, stepping through traffic, side by side in the alley, the couple fighting and the way it crushed his gut. He recalled trying to think that Sam was just a woman, an old friend, but unable to resist the urge to stare at her feminine motion.

The conversation. She was still Sam, but she was someone else too, someone with a past, someone with real pain. She had life moments, memories that he was not part of. That felt strange. They had grown up together and for a time he could predict most of her moves, but they had some years apart between them now and she had secret places that he could only guess at and those scared him. That was human and normal and he wanted in. Inside her life.

Inside her.

The sex. He wasn't sure about the sex. The memories of carnality this morning loomed over him. Their couplings had been fierce, desperate, and very different than in the past. In the past they had good sex. They had been each other's first. They loved each other and they had taught each other how to make love. But this morning was off the chart. On the world map of sex Freddie Benson had pretty much stayed on the main streets. Last night Sam Puckett took him off-road. Last night they explored places he had only read about when no one was looking.

And he liked it. Years ago Freddie had seen a bad movie where a werewolf was having sex with a victim. Maybe he'd seen it with Sam. At the time it was ludicrous, outrageous, hilarious, but he also remembered that Dark Freddie stirred at the kink, just slightly, and his already closed eyes squeezed even tighter. He remembered they had laughed and made fun of it then. Freddie wasn't laughing now.

He and Sam had werewolf sex last night. She had always been a good lover. That thing she could do denuding chicken bones with just her mouth had him convinced she was a "genius" and when she applied that mouth to his anatomy the result was like some kind of whole body party. They were always good together, and previously he had always felt like he brought his –A- game to the bedroom, but what they did a few hours ago felt like some kind of crash course in mind bending, vision inducing, life altering dilly doo. This was the kind of physical intimacy that made people not want to get old or die. But it was all her. In the time they had been apart Sam had gotten some kind of Ph.D. or black belt in tantric boot knocking. Looking back on their intercourse Freddie imagined himself like some bedroom beginner as Sam took his body, mind and soul on a rack ride of supernatural proportions. It was like a workout where Sam was constantly ahead of him, urging him on, exhorting him in husky tones to go harder, faster, deeper.

Werewolf sex pure and simple. He suppressed a shudder but not the smile that cracked his faux sleeping face.

Sam was different than he remembered, changed in some very intriguing ways. Where had she learned those things? How many lovers had she had? How big a disappointment was he? Had she faked her reactions? She was loud and pleading when she wasn't demanding like some sex coach. There was no way she was in the same place he was after last night. As soon as he opened his eyes she would thank him and usher him out the door. He had caved, tumbled into the sheets with her and was no longer her equal. She had out-screwed him.

The covers moved. She wasn't leaving though, he could feel her weight across from him, her breathing was clear as was the sound of her skin on the sheets around them. Her foot brushed his calf. What was she doing?

Sam Puckett was staring at Freddie Benson's naked body. His smooth, muscular, chiseled almost Photoshop quality, bruised body.

What was up with the bruises? Some were fresh from last night, the fight at the restaurant, some were old, yellow, healing, the scratches on the shoulders were hers and the thoughts of the two of them wrestling in the cool linen continuing the "match" they had started downstairs sizzled across the rear view mirror in her mind.

What had they done? What had they started? More importantly, how could she keep it going?

This was the clearest she could remember thinking about the two of them in her entire life. There was no anger at him, no desire to get a reaction out of him, no confusion or shame at being drawn to a nerd with Eddie Munster hair, just a profound sense that she wanted more of him.

Much more.

It was the same feeling as long ago in an elevator. One night they broke up, saying, "I love you," and the power of those words, the sudden realization of the truth of it, shook her down and exposed a core she had shielded for most of her life to that point.

Now, she stared at the ham earring in his left lobe. In a movie the camera would have zoomed in and examined the design of the silver ornament, but all Sam could do was squint. Why wouldn't he tell her about it? He was somebody different, yet somehow the same, like some stone carving begun years ago the firm material was there, but the shape had changed, become more distinct.

What they had done this morning. She shivered at the crisp memory of him loving her. She was out of control. She wanted to devour him, to consume him. He was exotic bacon indeed, and he was so tender, so giving. She remembered how she would turn up the dial on their sex, and he would refocus it, refine it, slow her down, force her to savor the sweat and the sweet and the salty. He was not screwing her; he was loving her, thoughtfully, physically, deeply, thoroughly.

She shuddered again at the memory of the sensations, the incredible splashing cauldron that she became with his penetrations and attention, his patient, adoring attention.

She had cried and cried, the tears streaming down her face in the dark room as he took her higher, to places that had only lived in empty promises before. Did Freddie know what he had done? She did not care that she had cried, that he found his way so far inside her that he tapped a well of tears. She was aware of one thing: what they did was not just him, it certainly wasn't her, it was them, the pair, the combination, they came together and made something more. Only Freddie had ever produced this reaction, it was completely missing from the sexual workouts she had sometimes endured with The Biggest Mistake of Her Adult Life.

Sam and Freddie were special when they came together. They had something unique and she could not let him just get up and walk out. Briefly she smiled at the idea of tying him up (again) but not letting go.

Freddie squeezed his eyes shut. He was scared. Scared of what he wanted to say, versus what he thought he should say. He was not ready to start again. She had betrayed him, treated him badly, left him for another man, and the mystery around that time seemed to swell out like a fog, clouding his thoughts. She was not the Sam he had grown up with. She was still funny and creative, still strong and indifferent to public opinion, still lovely. But she was now a food slicing, business running, sex Jedi. Had the old man taught her that stuff? He was shocked at her and shocked at how much he enjoyed it.

Fred was aware of his body, too. His muscles ached from where he had been hit, his feet were sore from the long walk in dress shoes, his flesh was sticky from their coupling and he smelled of rain water and musk. It felt raw and tender between his legs. "Little Freddie" had gotten a workout without precedent in his admittedly brief sexual resume.

He was pretty sure his breath could stop a truck as he ran his raw tongue over the grit on his teeth.

Why was his tongue raw?

Oh yeah. He smelled her in his mustache and beard. He felt a wiry hair on his tongue. How did he gracefully expel that? Yet even as his mind pursued that awkward Not-For-Ms.-Manners question he felt his heart speed up and was aware of the swelling tension below his waist. Butter. Sam made him horny, his blood danced like water on a hot griddle at the meaty, wet memory of her. And distantly Marisa Benson shrieked.

Sam swept her long golden hair over her back. Except for the nakedness this was just like when they were younger, she could not take her eyes off him then either, back when she realized she was attracted to him and it made her angry and scared.

There was a knock, an urgent thumping on the door to the apartment, "Sam, are you in there kid?" a female voice called from the other side.

Sam rolled off the bed, wrapped a sheet around herself and went to the door, her body was knotted from the fight, the walk and the all night gymnastics. She opened the door on its chain, something she almost never did because woe to any home invader at Casa Del Puckett.

Two very curious dark eyes squinted at Sam, "Girl, what you doing in there?" the voice crackled with suggestion.

"Yes, Beth, I ended the drought last night," Sam said in a quiet tone.

"YES!" the woman shouted her voice ringing in the narrow hallway.

"Beth, he's still asleep," Sam shushed her.

"Okay, but get downstairs with the deets, girl. I wanna know EVERYTHING."

Sam giggled and closed the door.

Freddie was surprised at the girly sounds he heard but used the opportunity to screw up his courage and open his eyes. He was greeted by something out of an ancient painting. Sam stood at the door, the sun streaming in through the skylight bathing her in white. The sheet concealed her, making her look like some erotic photograph, her blond hair was wild and snarled with a kind of enchanted glow in the morning rays. He had a powerful desire to comb it until it was smooth. He actually felt something throb in his chest when he looked at her.

She turned and each sort of jolted as their eyes met.

"Hi," she said. Her voice rattled a little on some wet junk in her throat.

"Good morning," he said back.

Sam cleared her throat, "So, you want something?" she asked.

"What are you offering?" he answered. He was flirting with her, and he honestly didn't care to stop. There was something in being with Sam that brought out a better Fred, someone he couldn't be without her. He felt really good. How long had it been since he felt this good? His mother's voice started to call up to him and he closed the door on her.

Sam wasn't quite blushing as she turned to look back at the door, "Uh, breakfast or a bagel or something. I need to get to work, that was Beth, my lead Barista. She's a great worker and I've got to find a way to keep her engaged. She brings customers back." Was she really talking to him like he cared about some mundane detail from her working life? _Great way to make him want a second date, Puckett._

Freddie propped his head on his right hand, his bicep round and prominent. Sam noted the faded pink network of veins under the white skin. When he started lifting in high school he had added bulk, but now he was cut, defined. If she didn't give herself an out she would hurl herself onto him again. "Uhm, I need to get downstairs, let me get cleaned up and then if you want, I can get you some breakfast-if you want."

"Sounds good," he said. What he wanted as he watched her sort of hobble across the shiny wooden floor was not appropriate, or he doubted it was. His mind was no longer on his side. He did not trust himself at all. He wanted her to drop the sheet so he could watch her walk naked. When he was a boy he wanted to see her walk in panties, but now he wanted to watch bare hips rock, her breasts bob, see that yellow hair drape over her brown nipples. He thought of a cat supplely rolling along ready to pounce. That wasn't how Sam was actually walking and he was aware he was living in his imagination.

And he liked it.

"I'm gonna hop in the shower," she looked at him, and if she weren't Sam Puckett he would have called the look some flavor of shy.

"K," he replied as the bathroom door closed. He wanted to join her, to hold her again. He should say something, some magical thing that made sense of who they were now based on everything that had ever happened to them. Was he nuts? He didn't want her out of his sight. He heard the shower curtain rings clatter and then the hiss of the water. He remembered the bathroom, a tiny affair with an uneven floor, open, white-washed shelves and a claw footed tub. The toilet seemed to flush itself periodically.

Sitting up he could now smell the heavy coffee and spice aromas from the shop downstairs. His stomach rumbled. He looked around Sam's apartment. It was small, kind of cozy really. It wasn't the totally devastated space her old room in her mom's house had been. Things seemed to have a place. Not a lot of girl touches though, no plants, lots of dust, a few books on the shelves, which was new, although she did have pictures. Some he recognized. Cat Valentine, Carly, Spencer, many he did not. No pictures of the Professor. A couple because of the clothes and gushy-huggy poises were probably Melanie. None of her mom.

No pictures of Freddie either. He was in a couple of group shots from the iCarly days, but nothing from when they were a couple. Not one. What did he expect? Did he have pictures of her at his place?

Yes. He had one that was on his computer and his phone, and that sat on a shelf. He moved it around, putting it away, breaking it out and displaying it, then putting it away again. It was like a barometer of his Sam interest. The picture was one of him leaning back, arms crossed with a kind of loopy grin. Sam's head on his shoulder looking up at something, the smile on her face fueled by some deep inner affection that he recognized and often missed.

And he felt a sinking sensation as he considered that the two of them were out of sync. He wanted to ask her that stupid question, "Was it good for you?" but he feared the answer, suspected very deeply that he had failed her as a lover. She was the werewolf, he was the victim.

Sam ran a soapy loufa over her arms as the icy water rushed down on her. It stung and took her breath. She had to clear her head, turn off the sex engine that was idling in her. She wanted so badly to open the shower curtain and just see him there. She thought of some goofy ways to get him to come in, "hey could you bring me some, hand me a…" what? Something. She did not want to go to work. She wanted to return to the incredible sensual banquet of that dark, moaning space of not that long ago.

She rinsed the soap off her pale skin with a stream so cold it might have a polar bear swimming in it. The frigid water cleared the suds from her long hair, then she turned the hard water encrusted knobs until the frosty stream ceased. Her body twisted with the chill and she held the air in her lungs.

When she parted the curtain Freddie was standing there. Her heart crashed into her ribs, she sounded very calm as she asked, "Sorry, do you need to use the restroom? Guess I should have asked before I just charged in here…"

Freddie stood there staring at her drenched, exposed body. From anybody else it would have been creepy, but he seemed almost reverent.

She said, "So how long have you been standing there…"

He didn't let her finish, "I need to tell you something."

She braced herself. The sex had been too crazy, too abnormal for him, he really did hate her, there was someone else, he needed somebody his mother would approve of, he was gay, she was ready for some set of words that would end the relationship before it truly got back on track.

"I want to apologize for last night," he said.

"Apologize? Fredd…"

His hand was up, palm out, "Sam, let me say this, please. I didn't intend to… for last night to be what it was, what it turned into. You were my friend-are, my friend, I, I'm sorry, if, you, I, I didn't…"

Sam felt a great black space open up, it was a familiar shadow filled with low voices that told her how worthless and stupid she was. Normally she fought back, raged against them, but today she didn't have the wind, "I'm kinda cold," she said in a low voice, "could you hand me my robe?"

He did not respond, deep in his speech he continued, "Sam, I'm really sorry about last night,.."

"Sure Fred, I get it. Can you hand me my robe?" her flesh looked like that of some uncooked bird about to be slid into the oven.

"This is really hard," he said, "Sam, do you think you and I, I mean, could we go out sometime?"

Sam's head shook with a shiver, his words were English but they had a foreign language quality, she wasn't tracking, "What?" her body was trembling. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Freddie was not looking at her, "Yeah, I guess, I, you and I are complicated, but I want, or I don't want, I, I…"

Sam was still aware of the chill creeping in around her, but it seemed far away now, the most important thing right now was the words he couldn't seem to push out of his mouth, "Fredwad, that was you last night taking the log to the beaver, right?"

"Uhm, yeah, about that, I'd like a chance to do that again, I mean, maybe I wasn't bringing the thunder…"

Sam's trembling, icy jaw fell, "Fredenbarney, are you kidding me?" She looked at the ceiling, "there was thunder, there was a crazy storm."

"Look, Sam, I don't mean the weather, I, just, go out with me, okay? Let's not talk about the past, or sex, or, anything really, let's just hang out again. You and I had fun, we…"

"Need each other?" she said, in a small, small voice.

He nodded, quickly, an oddly shameful motion, "Yeah, all those fans, back in the iCarly days, what'd they call it, 'Seddie'? Maybe they were onto something. Hey Sam, are you cold?" He was not looking at her eyes.

"Oh hell yeah," she stammered.

"Wow, I'm sorry," and he grabbed a large towel off a shelf and swaddled her in it.

The effect of that simple act almost made her melt. A simple, obvious gesture that seemed to inject her with some agent that turned her insides to soup.

"You okay?" he asked.

She blinked, "yeah—now."

There was a pounding on the apartment door. "Sam! Sam! It's C.H.! Open up hot stuff."

Sam felt ill, her thought was, _oh not C.H. , not now_

Freddie thought, _who the hell is C.H.?_

**Chapter 14: iDate Sam and Freddie—Again.**

**A/N I had no intention of returning to this story and this 13****th**** chapter is just me working out, reaching for something, trying to figure out stuff that has no answers that I'm likely to find. I don't know if there will ever be a chapter 14, I didn't write this to be read, I just wrote it because I could.**

**If you read it I hope you liked it. **

**Read**

**Any of these fine authors:**

**Moviepal, Pigwiz, TheWrtrInMe,** **jhuikmn08, Dwyn Arthur, afanoffanfic, Lackadaisical Pajamas, ladylioness, Oceanmistsupporter. There are others but I don't know everything. **


	14. Chapter 14: Real Life

**As far as chapter 13 is concerned, thanks for Fav's, PM's and follows, but special mention to reviewers:**

**Movie Pal, jhuikmn08, mizkntuhke Lackadaisical Pajamas, Ladylioness Oceanmistsupporter, Darsnider, afanoffanfic,** **JJLHOTITEM1, Dwyn Arthur and pigwiz.**

**I'm still wrestling with things that most of you have probably figured out. Why are we attracted to some folks and not others? Why do we torpedo relationships? Sex ain't love but we confuse the two. Men and women trying to come together, then stay together, these are difficult concepts to me.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly, and repeats are finally starting to surface.**

**iApuckettlypse**

**Chapter 14: Real Life**

**(Gibby's POV)**

My life is full of challenges.

The reekage of the farts I was dropping was blinding, like the smell of burning tires, lots and lots of burning tires. Because of my earbuds and Peartunes I couldn't tell how loud they were, though. They felt noisy, real cheek flappers, y'know? I was on the stair machine and over on the treadmill there was this super cute, overweight girl giving me the stink eye. Do you ever think about that? How life isn't like TV? Like how real people, the kind you stand in line with at Cost Monger are everywhere. How some of them would be really good looking if they'd drop some pounds? The not-TV world has a lot of people who would look pretty good if they just took better care of themselves. Treadmill girl had on make-up, with these super red lips and giant round earrings that looked like a parrot should be sitting in them. I don't get why women wear make-up when they go to the gym. But then I hate going to the gym. I don't know how Fred does it. I've been kinda going without telling anybody because, well, I think I'm one of those real world people that would look better if I lost weight.

Does my hair look like it's falling out?

On the elliptical machine was this very old, skinny woman, I mean super bony, like a broom handle wearing a shirt. If she smelled my farts she didn't show it. She was working that elliptical so hard I'm pretty sure she was running away from death. Some people are that way, not heavy but super, sickly thin.

Red lips girl glared at me when I smiled and nodded at her, I was hoping she would blame old stick woman for the farts. Red lips gave me the same narrow eyes a cat does when you look at it across the room. I was trying to figure out how to get a conversation going with someone in a room that smelled like the toilet was plugged. I could pretend I wasn't farting, sometimes pretending gets me through some real messes, but eventually you have to own your stink.

Fred's text message cut the music off in my buds. His message was short: "Need a PU," and the address. If you didn't know Fred you'd think all he needed was a pick-up, "come get me" was what the message said. Because I speak Fred there was this feeling like I'd just swallowed a whole snow cone. Something was wrong. There was all kinds of things it could be. I have access to his work e-mail and he was getting pounded with messages about the PearWatch release. New lady boss was working it, looking for updates on stuff, but I know enough about women to understand what she really wanted: Fred's attention, his manly attention if you know what I mean. Still, I was pretty sure what was on his mind was last night.

Last night I left him and Sam after the fight at the restaurant. After a long time apart the two of them were together, talking. When I thought about the evening I ran my tongue over my teeth—even though we won the fight I was sore. My gums hurt from punches I took and my knuckles were raw from punches I threw. With a swollen face and my natural gas problem smooth talking cute red-lipped girl, any cute girl, was gonna take a little adjustment. When I remembered what happened my stomach did a kind of blow-up spewing thing like those movie volcanos where everyone is trying to get off the island. I'd gone to Tasha's and she fixed some kind of vegetarian thing she liked. Lots of kale and beans. She wasn't interested in making out for old times' sake and neither was Mahmoud her new boyfriend. So, I made it back to Fred's mom's place in time for Mrs. Benson to practically water board me about "Fredbear."

Mrs. Benson. Something was going on with Mrs. B. She's always, been, well a couple episodes short of a complete season, but she was looking really stressed even for her. Like something was messed up. It's easy to get her worked up. I'm pretty sure if I had farted in her apartment she would have sold the place. Still, Mrs. Benson kinda gets a bum rap. She just loves Fred too much. She's like my brother Guppy when he was a kid. He wouldn't leave the cat alone, always chasing and hugging the cat, putting him in beds and wrapping scarves around him. I wonder how Mrs. B. got so crazy. Sometimes I wanna ask Fred, but I don't know how to say, "Why's your mom a head case?" Sam could say that. Maybe that's why Fred likes Sam so much. She asks the tough questions.

Oh yeah, Fred and Sam. I left the two of them together, and that is a crazy thing. The two of them together I mean. You know how on TV shows you see a couple and you think, "Man, they belong together, they are so cute,"? But like in real life you almost NEVER see any couple like that? Well Sam and Fred are kinda this weird mash-up of real life and TV.

No, Fred's text meant there was trouble, something was wrong. Fred wants a ride when he's distracted. When Fred is distracted he drives like chiz. Fred needs a plan even if he's just driving, he needs to know where he is going and how he will get there. So I got down off the stair machine and when I stretched my leg back I fired off a round that I'm pretty sure could be heard in China, a loud, bubble wrap popping sound. I imagined I'd shot the back off my sweat pants. Skinny old woman kept running from death, cute, red-lipped girl made a face.

I winked at her as I walked out of the room. I looked back at her twice. She had no idea what she was missing.

Because it was Seattle it was raining. I kind of miss the grey, wet days. It wasn't raining hard, just a drizzle, but in this town it would last most of the day, getting everything soggy. I saw Fred standing at the bus stop.

You can always tell when Fred has been with Sam. He's different somehow. When they first started dating I remember he did that thing where he followed Sam with the iCarly camera, even cutting out Carly. Some days with Sam he was just, I dunno, he just seemed happy, and glad and stuff. His times with Sam are weird. He is really happy and crazy at the same time. Does that make sense? But I always know when they've been together because he looks like he fell out of moving car after losing an argument with a chainsaw killer and then rolled under a bus.

Run-over-by-the-bus-guy was who got in the car. He was also pretty wet from the rain. If his mother saw him I'm pretty sure her head would blow off her shoulders.

"Hey, no buttons on your shirt?" I said, and I gave the universal I-know-what-that-means guy face complete with bouncing eyebrows.

"Just drive," he said and the door shut too hard.

Oh boy. This was bad. With any other woman the missing buttons on the shirt probably meant that red-hot monkey dilly-doo happened. With Sam and Fred it could mean she made him eat the buttons as part of some kind of deal that Fred lost.

And Fred would eat them. He is a really honorable guy.

As I took the car into traffic I wanted to ask what happened after the restaurant last night. I figured they were gonna hook-up, do The Deed, I mean, sure they'd fight, it's like a, what do they call it on those nature shows? A mating ritual. Sam and Freddie fight, it's how they work together. Last night I was pretty sure Sam couldn't take Fred in a fight anymore, but she is kind of a butter-sock swinging machine. I mean she once beat-up a whole dark room full of juvies, so, in real life nothing is certain, you know?

"Oh. My. God. What is that smell?" Fred asked, blinking.

"Sorry, Tasha became a vegetarian."

"So you murdered her and her rotting body is in the trunk?"

I laughed as he powered the window down.

"Next time there are riots somewhere they should throw you in to disperse the crowd," he said.

Fred is funnier than when he did the Fred-bot routine. I explained the whole Vegan or Vegetarian thing but when Fred jokes about hurting women I know he is messed up. He never jokes about hurting women. Any time he has been with Sam, well, like I said, he's different, like he's been pushed in directions he doesn't like to think about. Being with Sam pushes his limits.

Right now he was a mess, but he was a mess when I left him and Sam. This morning's mess was different. He had the Sam-forized look. He had been with Sam for hours and I'm pretty sure that's like being exposed to some space rock that can change your DMA.

My latest release almost lifted me off the seat and made that dry-butt-sliding-on-vinyl sound.

"Dude!" Fred said and he stuck his head out the window. In the lane next to us was one of those really wrinkly, melted wax looking dogs (sharpie? Shit too?). The dog was hanging his head out like he was trying to get to the funk in our car so he could roll in it.

"Please tell me that was the last air bender," Fred gasped.

"Sorry, there's more where that came from. Hey, there's a bright side."

Coughing, he said, "And that would be…"

"This is a rental, not your mom's car."

That actually seemed to brighten his day a little.

"So, seriously, how'd the night go?" I asked. It was late morning traffic and the sun was blocked out behind dirty clouds.

Fred drew his head back from the window exhaling loudly, "I don't know. I don't think I was there."

I glanced over at him, keeping my eye on the road, weaving between cars, "Uhm, huh?"

"Gib, am I a smart guy?"

Oh man, this was worse than the tragic series finale of _Celebrities Under_ _Water_. Fred never doubts how smart he is. "Yeah, you're one of the smartest guys in a place full of smart guys."

He shook his head and he stared out at passing storefronts as he rolled the window down.

"I don't feel like a smart guy," he paused, "I don't even know who I am right now."

"If you talk about it, you might feel better," I told him. That was something they taught me back when I was doing counseling.

"You sound like a therapist," he slid his thumb nail through his front teeth while making a lot of sniffing sounds.

"I used to be a counselor, remember?"

He spit a boomerang piece of thumb nail out the window, "How would you rate yourself as a counselor?"

"Not that great," I floated another one into gen pop. It was one of those long, hot numbers and it squeaked as it fought its way into the light.

Fred made a face like one of those sad clown paintings, his hand was waving in front of him trying to clear the Gibervesence from the air. He shifted in his seat, positioning his head into the rushing breeze from the open window. He kind of shouted a little, "Gib, the girl I walked with last night was amazing, funny, and sunny and sexy, and smart and mysterious."

I nodded. "That sounds pretty good," and it did. It was kind of like something I think we all want.

He sucked in the wet wind, "Yeah, it was pretty good. It was better than good, it was great; I spent the night with her. It was wild, life changing," he drew his wet sleeve over his face, wiping away the rain that had collected on his face.

"But it was bad?"

"No, I said it was great. One of the best nights of my life," he looked beat-up. Not just the wet hair and bruises and, hey, his eye looked way better.

"Sooo… I admit it, I'm confused," I told him.

"Like always, she does something to me I don't understand. We walked and talked and I learned stuff about her but…"

The guy in front of me was going slow, real slow, too slow. I was following too close, I needed to get over.

I hit the blinker changing lanes behind this truck that was overflowing with sopping, transparent trash bags, "But…."I said,

"So this morning, I ask her out on a date, and I think she was gonna say yes, and there was a knock at the door, and this, this, guy shows up and Sam becomes like, somebody else."

"So you knocked off a piece then asked her out? I don't understand."

"Gib!" he was wazzed. "'Knocked off a piece?' This is Sam, okay? She, look, just don't think of her like that, okay?"

"Sorry, but who was this guy? I still don't understand."

"That's two of us. He came in, looked at me like I was using his toothbrush and Sam became this other person, someone I did not recognize, it was like she was two people." Fred was really animated, like he'd downed a liter of that new Wahoo Caf-Punch. I asked him:

"Who was this guy?"

"I dunno, all I know is, he showed up with no shirt looking totally baked."

"Huh?"

"Exactly. Sam runs me out the door and brings shirtless guy in, like, like a shift change or something."

"So, she's with this guy?"

"I guess, I mean, I dunno, I didn't think so, I…" he just shook his head and looked like he wanted to chew on something.

"That's majorly uncool," I said.

He snorted, "Tell me about it. I mean, last night, she made me laugh and I made her laugh, and we had fun just being together. That's something that I love. I remember how I used to look forward to having her come over, or going to see her, I mean, knowing we were gonna be in the same place felt, exciting to me."

"Yeah, that seems normal," I said.

"What do you mean?"

I didn't answer because the guy in the left lane wouldn't let me over. I would slow down, he would slow down, I'd speed up, he would speed up. "Okay buttmunch, you wanna decide how you wanna live your life?"

"What?" Fred said, kind of shocked.

"Not you, this guy," I pointed over at one of those battery and gas cars, "the guy driving the mutant."

"Mutant?"

"Yeah, y'know, one of those cars that uses gas and electricity."

"Hybrid," Fred said.

"What?"

"It's not a mutant, it's a hybrid."

Trash-filled truck had sped up and paper cups and some kinds of wrappers were blowing a drizzle of stuff people throw away, "30 percent chance of garbage," I said.

Fred didn't laugh, and when I looked over again at mutant car, the driver was her.

Red lipped girl.

My heart did this thing, like a ball that some football player was fumbling. She looked over at me and her face was like she just sat on a roofing nail. I looked straight at her and she looked straight back. In a TV show I would have heard music. I backed off the gas and fell in behind her.

I said, "You think she wants me to chase her?"

"Huh?" Fred said. "Hey Gib, Bushwell is that way." He made a thumb gesture to the west at the intersection we just blew through.

"Don't women like that? You know, being pursued?" I asked, watching her head to see if Red Lips was checking her rear view. Her car was throwing up lots of water that clouded my view. I ran the wipers.

"You think Sam wants me to chase her?" he was rubbing the ham earring.

"Well, Sam isn't a woman, I mean, yeah she is, but she isn't, you know?" I was memorizing Red Lips' license number. I don't know why, it was like I was just a character in some crazy story.

Fred's tone was kind of peeved, "Sam is a woman, Gib, maybe not traditional, but, damn. This should be easy. A good relationship shouldn't be hard."

I was only half listening, "Why? Lots of things that matter are really hard. Why should Sam and Freddie be easy?"

He shook his head. Fred kept talking like he was trying to work out a problem, "Sam from last night was different. Something has happened to her. Last night, I know this sounds weird, but at one point she was cutting up some stuff for sandwiches and she seemed to kind of zone out, like a PTSD flashback that soldiers have where they're back in combat in their heads. I know that doesn't make sense, but we talked a lot, seemed to kind of be on good terms again. Anyway, I was getting ready to leave, I mean, whatever we had once was changed now, but somehow we ended up wrestling and the next thing I know, I'm carrying her up the stairs telling her I'm never gonna let her go, saying things, I mean stuff is coming out my mouth that has nothing to do with who I am today. Is any of this making sense?"

"No," was Red Lips following me? Was this some kind of crazy fate thing?

He looked over at me, the same narrow cat-eye face that red lipped girl gave me. The same look the cat would give Guppy when he was carrying a scarf.

I tried to focus on what Fred was saying, I told him, "But that's okay, you don't always have to make sense dude. You spend your whole life making sense of stuff and where does it get you? I mean really?"

"What?" he asked as I followed Red Lips into a turn.

"Look," I said, "everything doesn't make sense. Sam brings stuff to the story that you have to juggle, she is complicated. You aren't kids anymore, you both have lives and stuff. There's more to life than iCarly, dude."

Fred shook his head, I knew the look on his face. He goes to this place when his brain can't figure something out. Fred's a smart guy, but there are things he can't figure out. Sam is one of those. I mean, he understands her pretty well, Sam _and_ Fred is something he can't figure out.

"Look, do you want to see her again?" I asked looking ahead at Red Lipped girl. Was she checking me in her rear view mirror?

"Yes," he said it fast, the answer coming out of some place with more say than his brain. The way a monkey says "yes" to a banana.

"Seems simple enough, then," I was watching every move Red Lips made, I was following her, now.

"Oh really? You know Gib, don't take this the wrong way, but you see things way differently than most folks."

I nodded, "Yeah, I'm pretty special."

Fred laughed, "Yes you are. Okay, so what about this guy, I think his name was Cheech or C. H. or something."

"What about him? You want to know, ask her," I said.

He paused, I could tell he didn't like that answer, "Or I could ask Carly," he said.

"Or you could ask Carly," I said back.

We were at a light, when it changed, Red Lips rolled ahead and turned into a parking lot and I drove ahead. I knew I was gonna come back here. I didn't know why exactly, but I knew something was going on. Whoever was telling my story had plans for me. I said to Fred, "So, guy to guy, last night, how was it? Not the brain pain, what-does-this-mean stuff, just the, the…" I gave my hips a dancer's bump thrust thing and bit my lip.

Fred shook his head, "Gib, a gentlemen does not bring a beautiful woman to many withering, tear soaked orgasms during a reality altering sexual encounter that leaves them both sweat drenched and gasping for breath and brag about it in casual conversation with his friends," he wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"You set the standard all men should follow Mr. Benson."

"With great power comes great responsibility."

You know on TV how couples get together and they look good, and they have laughs and funny situations and car chases and stuff?

Real life isn't like that at all.**  
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**Chapter 15: I, Carly.**

**A/N Yeah, this wasn't iDate Sam and Freddie like I promised. The story leads, I follow. Next up, think you know Carly Shay? Maybe you do, maybe nobody does these days.**

**If you read this chapter I hope you liked it. But if you didn't read it or like it, that's cool too.**

**Read**

**Any of these fine authors:**

**Aussiemma**,**Moviepal, Pigwiz, TheWrtrInMe,** **jhuikmn08, Dwyn Arthur, afanoffanfic, KingxLeon21**, **Lackadaisical Pajamas, ladylioness, Oceanmistsupporter. There are others but I don't know everything. **


	15. Chapter 15 I, Carly

**As far as chapter 14 is concerned, thanks for Fav's, PM's and follows, but special mention to reviewers:**

**jhuikmn08, Lackadaisical Pajamas, afanoffanfic, JJLHOTITEM1, Mike2101, Guest, oceanmistsupporter, moviepal, TheWrtrInMe, PanopticBibelot and shakeitout15.**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly and Cat Valentine, I just use his property in creative ways. No one gets hurt. I swear.**

**iApuckettlypse**

**Chapter 15: I, Carly.**

My life is complicated. I don't think it always was, but I might be wrong. When I was younger, doing the web show with my two best friends I caught glimpses of how it was going to be. I think anyone who watched closely could see it too, who I would become. Italy changed everything.

Everything.

Do you ever feel like you are more than one person? I mean, do you ever find yourself doing things like you are watching a movie? You don't recognize the things you are saying or how you are acting. You know it's you, but you are surprised or disappointed in your choices. That has happened to me more and more since Italy.

Italy.

Italy was supposed to be an ending of my life in Seattle and a start of something new. Yeah, it was that all right. I try not to think about Italy, some days, it's like it never happened, some days I can be who I was before Italy. If Italy hadn't happened something else would have. It just happened to be Italy for me.

It's like I was saying, I'm two people, or even more than two. I'm one way with some people and another with others. Some days with my friends from high school I'm young, kind of optimistic and sparky. When I'm with them I'm in a time machine, reliving relationships that don't exist anymore if I'm honest.

When I'm honest.

Today, right now, I'm someone else. Someone I need to be, but I'm not that crazy about. That someone is sharp, skillful and dangerous. She is like some chemical that could blow everything up. She reminds me a little of Sam, actually, if Sam were calmer, more calculating.

I'm seated in the office of Tom Harmon waiting for the interview to start. The office is big, filled with dark walnut furniture and the smell of air freshener and lemon scented polish. There are lots of awards and photographs. Tom Harmon with the governor, Tom with various senators. Tom understands how to climb, how to move up. Light is streaming in from four big corner windows and I can see the Space Needle. I'm going to get hired for this job not because of my qualifications or my academic record or achievements on paper because I'm too young to have an experience based resume. I'm going to get hired because Tom Harmon is a man, a powerful man. And men like that want to dominate everyone. One of the ways they do that is with pretty girls.

I'm a pretty girl. Oh, I'm more than that, much more. I'm very smart, very creative, I was raised well, to do the right thing and to stand tall, my father gave me that. But in the world, in Tom Harmon's world I'm a pretty girl. A kind of thing. Like a piece of real estate that has to have an owner. It shocked me when I first rammed my head into the world men had built. It took me awhile to figure out how to use that.

Men can be managed.

The woman who led me into Tom's office has it figured out to some degree. Most women do. She knows who I am and that I'm better at it than she is. She hates me for it but I manage being disliked better than I did before Italy. If I need to I can make her like me. If I need to.

I used to date every boy I could. No, that's not accurate. I used to date every boy I wanted to date. It was like part of me always knew what I needed to do, but I didn't have a clear understanding of it.

Lately I date this really nice guy named Stuart. I need to end it. Stuart is like oatmeal. He is really good for you, but you have to add a lot of stuff to oatmeal to make it interesting. I'm tired of adding stuff. I want something hotter, someone that will shake everything up.

My PearPhone is making the text tone. I reach in my bag and switch it to silent mode. The text is from Freddie. I just can't get into calling him Fred. _Need to talk. Can we meet?_

Probably about last night. These bad guys came in the restaurant and trouble was going to start. Spencer got me out of there and I was glad. I don't need scandal or headlines when I'm interviewing with Tom Harmon.

Before I left for Italy I kissed Freddie Benson. I did it for a lot of reasons. He was cute, he was so sweet and warm. He was smart and very funny (that Fredbot thing just needed work and Sam could have saved him that time but didn't and I understand why).

Maybe I kissed him because I had started to figure it out.

Freddie had a crush on me for a long time, lots of boys did and do. The main reason I never did anything with him was because there was no challenge there. He was pre-fabricated, ready to date, just add girl. I didn't know it at the time but I didn't want safe or predictable Freddie. I thought I wanted a "bad boy" but what I really wanted was to win, I wanted to climb, sort of like Tom Harmon I guess. I wanted to dominate. It's a complex game if you think about it. Like chess only more complicated.

So why did I kiss Freddie that time? I'm not sure. Maybe I was saying goodbye. Not just goodbye to Freddie and iCarly and Seattle, but to who I was then. I knew it somehow. My time here was done. I was going away and when I came back I would be evolved. We were all different. There was no elaborate scheme to keep Carly in Seattle. We all knew what we had once was gone and it was time to move on.

The kiss caused trouble for me and Sam when I told her. Sam still had deep feelings for Freddie. I knew they would get back together. I knew they would break up again. In some ways my friendship with Sam had reached a limit. She was, and is, my friend, along with Freddie my oldest friend, but we were all changing and Sam with her monkey destructiveness had kind of worn me out. Sam is smart but her temper and hunger and self-doubt created stupid choices.

Stupid choices. So many people make stupid choices. Life is what happens to us and the choices we make about the things that happen.

I'm guessing Freddie was glad about that last kiss. A pretty girl kissed him. How bad could that be? Men take their kisses however they can get them and imagine they mean more than they do.

For a short time I was a celebrity. People knew me because of iCarly. That's fading though, the show is still out on the web, like just about everything ever, so who watches it? Probably just lonely guys in their basements who can't make the jump to adult life. People who want to remember when they were kids maybe. Kids now? There is so much new stuff all the time I don't see kids sticking with something old. Except maybe some classic thing. iCarly was no classic. Just some friends having fun. I tried watching some of the things we did. It was kind of embarrassing. I wonder if Tom Harmon will mention it. It's on my resume, well my TV resume. I had to craft the one for Tom Harmon differently. I mention iCarly to be accurate but I frame it differently. I consider my audience.

Tom Harmon comes in from a side door. He shakes my hand with a firm but pleasant grip. He is dressed in an expensive suit and is extremely well groomed. He smells good. He is heavier than I remember from the rally. His chair sits higher than mine so he is looking down on me. He sits behind the pictures of his wife, Cindy, and two children (one is theirs, the other adopted from Asia). He has rings on both hands, and he reminds me of a car salesman. He speaks well, but he uses the wrong word once. I don't correct him, instead noting it, like a crack in his wall. I'm pretty sure he is trying to imagine my panties. I wiggle to let him know they move easily.

It shouldn't be hard to get what I want. I have the power. All woman have it. Well, most women. Some of those ladies with the Godzilla thighs at Cost Monger might have the power in their own social class but they don't have the range I do. Men are easy to manipulate, a pretty girl can get what she wants, a pretty girl who is smart organizes what she wants and makes it happen. A smart person can accomplish a lot. A smart, pretty woman can do almost anything.

I'm giving Tom Harmon the bubbly, blushing Carly that I really was at one time, the one who bobs her head and rolls her eyes cutely. He is buying it. He is not doing a very good interview. He's doing all the talking, not learning about me. I give him a cocktail of sophisticated, naïve, and just a rumor of hand-job. He is kind of drunk on the sound of his own voice, thinking that I believe the picture of himself he has in his head.

He's using the height of his chair to try to look down my shirt. I casually shift to improve his view. I wish I had Sam's tits. I could use those things, but I've learned to leverage what I've got.

Harmon walks me to the door. He has talked through most of the interview but everything I've said was keyed to make him think well of himself. I'm going to get this job because Tom Harmon wants me on my knees pulling his pants into a wad at his ankles. He will hire me to try to make that happen.

Tom Harmon is just a man and I will take him in my mouth, eat him up and spit him out.

Leaving the office I see that Stuart has texted me and so has Sam. She is having problems with C.H.

Him again.

The clown. He made a mess for Sam and Cat a while back. I thought about interventions, but Italy taught me those rarely work. We keep getting burned till we get tired of the pain.

Freddie's text is the one that I most care about. But I don't know if I understand why.

I've got to get somewhere and have a cigarette.

I, Carly SECTION II

My life is complicated, and so is everybody else's if I think about it. I look over at Freddie. He's sitting across from me at the kitchen counter in my apartment in Bushwell. The room smells funny. Spencer has been welding something. I'm looking around the room and noticing things I never did before, chips in the countertops, areas that need paint. Things that aren't perfect. This space is very real, and feels lived in. I see all the things that made up my life before Italy, but I see dust on them, and things that used to be cute look kind of goofy.

Mainly I'm noticing Freddie. When he walked in this afternoon it reminded me of how we hung together as kids. Today I did something I hadn't done before, at least I don't think I ever did. I watched him walk across the room. He's wearing faded jeans, a Polo that exposes those arms. They remind me of statues I saw in Italy. Pale, shaped marble but with bruises. He should be carrying a shield and wearing sandals instead of Asics. His eye looks way, way better than it did yesterday. Did he use make-up? He still looks cute, even as stressed as he is right now. It's his Sam face. He always has this look when they are involved. They had to have hooked-up last night. She makes him work. He makes her work too. They are good for each other. I wish I had someone who made me feel stirred up inside, someone I had to work with.

God, I want a cigarette. I can imagine Freddie's reaction if I light up. I picture pulling the pack and lighter out of my purse and seeing his reaction. Yeah Freddie, Carly has a nicotine addiction.

I slide a sweaty glass of my special lemonade over to his side of the counter. The glass has drawings of fruit slices on the side, and it's old, part of a set that was my mom's. We lost the matching pitcher putting out the first fire that Spencer ever started. "Sounds like you had a quite a night," I say. "I'm glad I got out of there when I did. I wouldn't have been as useful in a fight as Sam."

Freddie dismisses my comment. He moves right to what he cares about. "So, who is C.H.?" he asks, takes a sip of my special lemonade then makes a face and looks suspiciously at the rim of the glass.

I shrug, "He's a clown," I taste my drink. Seems fine to me. "Why are you asking about him?"

Freddie seems to think about this, like I've asked a really tough math problem. "He was knocking on Sam's door this morning. I thought she was going to ask me to climb out a window. She shoved me past him out the door. Not even an introduction. She was embarrassed to be seen with me or him, I couldn't tell."

This morning. Yep they hooked up. For a moment I imagine Freddie with no shirt on. I need to ask Sam about any tattoos. For just a second I imagine that I ask him, then I come back into the conversation, "Oh she was embarrassed about him," I say, "not you. Nobody likes the clown. He's a knot of bad habits and too old for her. Sam and older guys…" I don't finish the thought but take a bigger taste of the lemonade. Does it taste a little funny? I made it the same way I always do. Maybe I'm different?

"So, are they-together?" he asks. I can see that my answer matters to him. How I answer is important to him and important to me, I think. Freddie smells really good. One of those man body washes. Not a full cologne. It's like I'm in an ad for the stuff, I imagine myself rubbing into Freddie like a cat would.

I shake my head, "I thought he was gone, actually. He probably needs something, money, a place to crash, some work—a toilet to throw-up in. That's how he is, he's like that fish that rides on other fish. I forget what they're called. After the mess with the professor Sam kinda got into helping people. Like it was good therapy or something. The Clown showed up with a sad story and Sam helped him out."

"Sam, helps people?" he said it in the same way he'd say, "The President was born on Mars?"

Freddie gives me this look, "Wow, that's different for you. I never hear you say anything bad about people," he says.

"What?"

He leans forward, I notice the veins in his neck, like a web, the gym has been good for Freddie, "He must be a real winner to make you call him names."

I squint at Freddie, "Huh? What names?

"Clown."

"Well, he's a clown, you know, big shoes, white face, red nose, he also does magic but he isn't very good at that, well, I don't think he's a great clown, either, I never laugh at anything he does. Okay, that's not true, I laugh at some stupid things he's done." Freddie's eyebrows are scrunched on his forehead. I can guess what is happening behind that handsome face. He's confused, sure, but also jealous and he doesn't like either feeling. I envy Sam. Something I never do except for her chest.

A cigarette would taste so good right now.

Freddie's face is the kind you get when you freeze frame a movie, "Sam is dating a clown?" he says.

"Not anymore." I giggle, "Oh Freddie."

"What?"

"You should see yourself, you look so wound up." I'm very aware that I'm two people right now. One of me thinks he looks so funny, I'm laughing but he cares so deeply about her. When he had his crush on me did he care like that? The other Carly is moving in the background, I don't trust her. She wants more than a cigarette.

He makes this smile with his lips and his eyebrows and I feel it in my hips. I swallow.

"So, he's a real clown?" Freddie asks.

"I guess, yeah, I mean, it's not like he needs a license or anything. He does gigs in the park, at restaurants, kid's parties, that whole thing." I catch my breath, what is going on in me? I know the answer but I'm not going to look at it.

Freddie shook his head, "So what's up with him and Sam? Why is she hanging with him?"

I have to focus my thoughts, all kinds of things are going through my brain, sensations, not really whole ideas, things moving too fast to understand, like when Spencer fast forwards music on that old tape player thing, you hear just noise. "Well, they met back when she had her baby sitting business with Cat, but they got close when she and the professor went south. I honestly don't know what they mean to each other. I don't know that I care a lot, really. "

"Sam dates a clown," when he said this his eyes were staring past me, trying to see farther across the room, through the wall, even.

"Like I said, they aren't together anymore-I don't think. Sam has, I dunno, if Sam were a house, she'd have a lot of rooms, and some are pretty messy."

Freddie continued that X Ray stare, not sure how to react. I know that look, he was at a place where he was about to make a choice, depending on what I said next, I could move things in a way I might like. The two Carlys are wrestling in my head.

Stop it! Am I really thinking these thoughts? Better Carly stepped up, "Freddie, when the relationship with The Creeper died, Sam was lost and she stumbled a lot, trying to figure out things."

"What are you telling me?" his voice is tense, not angry but definitely hurt. Freddie looks at me with those eyes of his, they are kind and strong. One Carly knows Freddie could use those eyes to get stuff, but he doesn't behave that way. He makes loving choices. Something in my gut tightens.

Again, I get my head into the right place, "I'm telling you that people change, as they get older they change. You remember that kid in school from Puerto Rico who moved to Canada then down here?"

"Sure, Saskatche Juan, what about him?"

"Well, after the professor he and Sam hooked up for a while, it didn't last, but they're still friends. She hired him to work the coffee shop."

Freddie seems to almost reel on the stool, "So, Sam got around—with guys?"

I make a sour face, and am I growling? "Freddie, grow up. Gibby practically walks around with a "Female Counseling" sign over his crotch, but because Sam's a woman she doesn't have the same options? Sam was hurt, scarred, trying to figure out who she is, what she could be. Her whole lifed was facing her and she was scared. You were gone Freddie, I was just back from Italy and wasn't really there for her either. Sam had nobody she could turn to. Think about her background, how she came up. You can't judge her Freddie, you can't judge anyone. You either accept people or you don't."

Men. So stupid. Even Freddie sometimes. But he's saved by looking really good.

Really, really good. Oh my God. I flush the thoughts out of my head, I look over at my purse where my cigs are. "Freddie, would it surprise you to find out that Sam is friends with a real life prostitute?"

The glass in his hand stops moving toward his mouth. He thinks about it before speaking, "Yes, well, no, I mean, Sam has always kinda walked on the edge," he drinks some lemonade, then coughs covering his mouth with his fist and I notice the skinned knuckles. "It isn't Cat, is it?" he asks.

"What, Cat Valentine?" I shake my head. Does he know who Cat is these days? I don't stop to explain it to him, I have a point to make.

"Freddie, they call this hooker, 'Downtown Abby' and Sam treats her at the shop, helps her out, doesn't judge her at all. Think you could do the same?"

"I never thought about it, I guess." Freddie rocks back a little on the stool. If I had to guess I'd say he was trying to push everything he was thinking into a chute and grind it up into something he could swallow.

Damn, Freddie is really hot. I always knew that, but today he looks better somehow, deeper, more valuable. My heart is beating fast. Too fast. "Well, maybe you'd better think about it, if you want to get involved with her again."

"Carly, YOU told me to come back."

"I told you to come back and fix things with Sam, not to sleep with her."

OMG. What is going on? Why did I say that? I'm not sure what I'm trying to do here. There are at least two Carlys wrestling under my expensive haircut, one I like, the other I've come to depend on.

Freddie's face says he can no longer see signs on the highway, he is totally lost. I decide to change the subject, "Freddie, what's the story on the earring?"

"What?" He blinks like he just woke out of some dream.

"The ham earring" I pointed at him, "what's the deal?"

Whoa, his face gets this red color, and all that brain confidence seems to leak out, leaving him looking really unsure of himself. I haven't seen this Freddie since he was way younger and his mom would call him for some hygiene treatment. He reaches up and rubs the earring, "Yeah, you are right, I can't judge Sam. We all make choices we have to own."

That wasn't the answer I expected. But I have this icy feeling in my stomach. I feel all stirred up inside. I can't stand it anymore, I pull a smoke out of my purse and light up. Freddie gives me the exact reaction I remember, his mouth drops open and he stares silently at me.

It's a big day of surprises for Freddie. For both of us.

I know why I kissed him before I left that day.

**A/N I was generally happy with the Sam & Cat Freddie episode. Felt good to see the two together. **

**Not sure about chapter 16, so, while I have some things plotted out it's all in flux.**

**I'm just winging this, really sorting through questions in my head, but I'm having a good time so that has to count for something, right?**

**If you read it I hope you liked it. But if you didn't read it or like it, that's cool too.**

**Read**

**Any of these fine authors:**

**Moviepal, Pigwiz, TheWrtrInMe,** **jhuikmn08, Dwyn Arthur, afanoffanfic, Lackadaisi cal Pajamas, ladylioness, Oceanmistsupporter. There are others but I don't know everything, regardless of how I act. **


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